Chapters of Life
(From my op-ed column, The Nature of Things)
I remember with remarkable clarity the summer that my grandmother came to visit me when I was living in California.
My two oldest children were then 3 and 2 years of age. I was handling the bookkeeping for three restaurants and bemoaning the fact that I had absolutely no time to write.
My grandmother, in her trademark calm, wise and cheerful disposition, consoled me with a bit of advice that, at the time, didn’t appease my impatience much. But I never forgot what she said, and over the years it began to make more sense to me.
We commonly hear people say, “Life is short,” and in some ways, it certainly seems so. But that day, I remember feeling as though I was trapped in a time warp of ceaseless repetition. Between the dishes, the diapers and the daily receipts; the taxes, the tantrums and the cutting of teeth, my days evolved around the demands upon me, to the exclusion of any personal considerations.
“I know you can’t see it now,” she told me, a mild smile on her face, “but you will have time. Life is long,” she said, “and you will be able to do all the things you want to do, just not all at the same time.”
A writer herself, I knew my grandmother understood my frustration.
“We live our lives in chapters,” she said, assuring me that my chapter as a writer would one day come.
In about a blink and a half, those two toddlers became adults, and I now spend several hours a day writing, happy to do so, while fighting the urge to lament the “loss” of my children. And I have a whole new appreciation for my grandmother’s insight.
Last week, I got a call from an old friend in California whom I hadn’t spoken with for some time. As we were catching up, I briefly diverged into a couple issues that I’ve been writing about—agriculture-related—and she responded with a small chuckle.
“I was just thinking, ‘Who reads that stuff?’” she confessed. “But then I have to remember where you are. People out here don’t care about any of that. It’s farm stuff.”
For a split second, her comment felt a bit like a slap in the face, but I knew she was right.
Most people, forgetting the true origins of the Big Mac—however distant and adulterated—believe agriculture is strictly the business of farmers.
“If it doesn’t directly affect them, they don’t care,” my friend explained.
I told her that I would argue that everyone is directly affected by agriculture—the policies and production practices behind their meals—whether they realize it, or not.
I was specifically referring to the recently released (though not recently discovered) health hazards associated with genetically modified organisms—not just GMOs themselves, but residues of the carcinogenic chemicals required to grow them that now lurk on every grocery store shelf in America. Unlabeled, unseen, unknown. While cancer, compromised immune and endocrine systems, infertility, neurological diseases, diabetes all continue to affect more and more people.
As I contemplate those who believe there is no correlation, and others that just don’t give a hoot, I find myself turning again to my grandmother’s wise words.
“Life is lived in chapters.”
Time has a way of catching up with us, even when we don’t feel the pages turning.
Today’s chapter of Ignorance and Apathy will be tomorrow’s Enlightened and Enraged.
Let us hope, anyway.
