Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre(3)

How many times have we talked about the knot just under my right ear that runs down under my arm? It was gone. No matter how I craned my neck. No pain. And I hadn’t even taken anything. I’d planned to. I even left two Aleve waiting on the kitchen counter for when I got back. No need. Everything worked. My neck, my arm. Relaxed.

I stood there for maybe ten minutes or so, watching the sun shine through the leaves, noticing the bright, misty rays. Sparkling. I put my hand out to catch one, a little quarter-sized disc of warmth, pulling away my tension. Grounding me.

What did you say about OCD personalities? That we have such a hard time living in the present? Not here, not now. I could feel every second. Eyes closed. Deep cleansing breaths. The scented, moist, cool air. Alive. Natural.

So different from transplanted L.A. with lawns and palms and people living on someone else’s stolen water. It’s supposed to be a desert, not a sprawling vanity garden. Maybe that’s why everyone there is so miserable. They know they’re all living in a sham.

Not me. Not anymore.

I remember thinking, This can’t get any better. But it did. I opened my eyes and saw a large, emerald-tinted bush a few steps away. I’d missed it before. A berry bush! They looked like blackberries but I went online just to be sure. (Great Wi-Fi reception by the way, even so far from the house!) They were the real thing, and a crazy lucky find! Frank had said something about this summer’s drought killing the wild berry harvest. And yet here was this bush, right in front of me. Waiting for me. Remember how you told me to be more open to opportunities, to look for signs?

It didn’t matter that they were the tiniest bit tart. In fact, it made them even better. The taste took me back to the blueberry bush behind our house in Columbia.*1 How I could never wait till August when they’d ripen, how I’d just have to sneak half-purple beads in July. All those memories came rushing back, all those summers, Dad reading Blueberries for Sal and me laughing at when she runs into the bear. That was when my nose began to sting and the corners of my eyes started watering. I probably would have lost it right there, but, literally, a little bird saved me.

Actually two. I noticed a pair of hummingbirds flittering around these tall purple wildflowers sprouting in a Disneyesque patch of sun. I saw one stop at a flower and then the other buzzed right next to it, and then the most darling thing happened. The second one started giving the first little kisses, moving back and forth with its coppery orange feathers and pinkish red throat.

Okay, so I know you’re probably sick of comparisons by now. Sorry. But I can’t help thinking of those parrots. Remember them? The ones we talked about? The wild flock? Remember how we spent an entire session talking about how their squawking drove me crazy? I’m sorry if I didn’t see the connection you were trying to make.

Those poor things. They sounded so scared and angry. And why wouldn’t they? What else should they feel when some horrible person released them into an environment they weren’t born for? And their kids? Hatched with this gnawing discomfort in their genes. Every cell craving an environment they couldn’t find. They didn’t belong there! Nothing did! Hard to see what’s wrong until you hold it up to what’s right. This place, with its tall, healthy trees and happy little birds trading love kisses. Everything that’s here belongs here.

I belong here.





From the American Public Media radio show Marketplace. Transcript of host Kai Ryssdal’s interview with Greenloop founder Tony Durant.


RYSSDAL: But why would someone, particularly someone used to urban or even suburban life, choose to isolate themselves so far out in the wilderness?

TONY: We’re not isolated at all. During the week, I’m talking to people all around the world, and on the weekends, my wife and I are usually in Seattle.

RYSSDAL: But the time you have to spend driving to Seattle—

TONY: Is nothing compared to how many hours people waste in their cars every day. Think about how much time you spend driving back and forth to work, either ignoring or actively resenting the city around you. Living out in the country, we get to appreciate our city time because it’s voluntary instead of mandatory, a treat instead of a chore. Greenloop’s revolutionary living style allows us to have the best parts of both an urban and rural lifestyle.

RYSSDAL: Talk for a minute about this “revolutionary living.” In the past you’ve described Greenloop as the next Levittown.

TONY: It is. Levittown was the prototype for prosperity. You had all these young GIs coming home from World War II, newly married, anxious to start a family, hungry for a home of their own, but without the means to afford one. At the same time, you had this revolution in manufacturing; streamlined production, improved logistics, prefabricated parts…all from the war, but with tremendous peacetime potential. The Levitts were the first to recognize that potential and harnessed it into America’s first “planned community.” And they built it so fast and cheap that it became the model for modern suburbia.

RYSSDAL: And you’re saying that model’s run its course.

TONY: I’m not the one saying it, the whole country’s acknowledged it as far back as the 1960s when we realized that our standard of living was killing us. What good is all this progress if you can’t eat the food or breathe the air or even live on the land when the ocean rises up over it? We’ve known for half a century that we need a sustainable solution. But what? Turn back the clock? Live in caves? That was what the early environmentalists wanted, or, at least, how they came off. Remember that iconic scene in An Inconvenient Truth where Al Gore shows us a scale with gold bars on one side and Mother Earth on the other? What kind of a choice is that?