Reason to Straddle the Grey Area

A Story by VERONICA

Mother Culture and Mother Nature are clearly the lesbian parents that have birthed and raised us as a people. We grow up with our roots and instincts buried in nature while society has taught laws: how to act with dignity and propriety, how to get hip and a well-respected job. Mother Nature feeds our bodies and spirits and Mother Culture strengthens our intellect and individuality. Now, as adult animals, we must choose which mother to follow; should we, as Thoreau suggests, “regard man as an inhabitant, or part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society” or should we disown our dangerous nature and safely cleave to the comfortable doctrines of society (49). Although the two forces are apparently warring, the issue is not as black and white as one would prefer. Humans are clearly products of both nature and society; so unless one is completely separate from one or the other, one cannot claim a purely natural or societal being (even in these cases it is not very cut and dry).

Nature, although the mother who provides for us our necessities, is anything but nurturing. Mother Nature throws us out into the world and all its mysteries with nothing to hold onto; we experiment with societies, theologies and philosophies to make sense of it. Her bluntness, regarding the processes of death and the pain we all experience, is interpreted as cold and evil. Yet, we are magnetized towards nature. Annie Dillard captures the magical and magnetic feelings that most people have reserve, in her essay “Seeing”, as she describes observing trees in her backyard;

“I walked up to a tree, an Osage orange, and a hundred birds flew away. They simply materialized out of the tree… I walked closer and another hundred blackbirds took flight. Not a branch not a twig budged: the birds were apparently weightless as well as invisible… How could so many hide in the tree without my seeing them?... I looked downstream where they flew, and they were gone.” (661)

She refers these events as free gifts. Sentiments like these are examples of the roots humans have in nature. That we are part of nature, appears to be an undeniable fact. Many attest to feeling “pure” or “whole” when walking through forests or natural surroundings. Also, a number of theories explain that people are most healthy when in nature, such as Richard Louv’s Nature Deficit Disorder; which is relatively self-explanatory, when people have a deficit of nature behavioral problems develop. This proves that without nature we lose something that makes us human.

Modern culture does it’s best to cope with and understand the world at large, often at the expense of its own “humane-ness.” These aspects of society, capitalistic competition, apathy, greed, conformity, etc. turn many away from it. But, the advantages we gain from art, literature, music and language though they may not be necessary, are not invaluable. The stress on community that society has had is increasingly important. Furthermore, as much as many (myself included) attempt to separate themselves from society’s fallacies, we make the mistakes of not letting go of aspects and ideologies of that embody these problems. In the modern world, more and more children grow up in front of television and computer screens. Due to this I have friends who claim to live a natural lifestyle and fail to realize that, were this the case, their newfound “lifestyle” would not include religiously watching “Hero’s” every Monday night. A more destructive example is the dualism, created by society, which most anti-socials carry with them. I am the worst at this. I find myself going out of my way to turn positive aspects of our society on their heads. I could rant about the green movement and how the advertising to support it is really hurting the environment- but, when asked about the good that has come from it, I attempt to denounce it entirely. In nature, it is clear that everything is a grey area. This often makes many uncomfortable, hence the creation of labels and gender and the many boxes our society puts events and people in. It is easier and more comfortable to say, “this is good, and that is bad” whether or not one is a proponent of a natural or societal state. In order to live “naturally” (to consider oneself not part of society) one needs to drop this sense of dualism and all obligations, ideologies and ties to society, without denouncing the value society has. “If you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled your affairs; then you are ready to walk” (Thoreau, 50). To do this in our world today is enough to drive one insane, and even if accomplished, one’s history and background is in society and those roots can’t be dismissed.

Dar Williams’s “The Christians and The Pagans” is a beautiful ballad that can be interpreted as the melding of our societal and natural roots. With the societal roots represented by “the Christians” and natural roots represented by “the Pagans”, Williams serenades, “the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table; finding faith and common ground the best that they were able.” It is clear that we are products of both our of our Mothers, and the best that we can do is to accept this as it is and to find the grey area, or the common ground, that connect the two. It is difficult to live like this, for there are pressures in our culture to pick sides and one will be targeted as inconsistent and hypocritical. It takes a person with a strong sense of self to do this, but when done our two frustrated lesbian mothers come together to find that there are more commonalities than one would expect. Most striking is the each has power that prevents us from being sons and daughters of simply one of the two.