Many, many years ago my sister called me on the phone, animated and breathless. She had signed up for a workshop with an organization called “The Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers.”
She explained that they were an international alliance of indigenous female elders whose focus was on human rights, the environment, and peace for everyone everywhere. The curriculum included meditation and chanting and ceremonies of commitment to honor being stewards of the earth. My sister was always a seeker. And since she was my elder and my role model and my personal goddess, whatever she was into, I was into.
When she became an actual grandmother, she took her role seriously. And when it was my turn, I followed suit. So here is my letter to you, my precious grandchild:
Before you were born, I pictured myself as an Auntie Mame kind of a gramma, a little outrageous, hyperbolic in my praise for everything you did, and a walking, talking, breathing dictionary definition of unconditional love. And when you were little, I actually checked all those boxes. But you’re 14 now. And lately I have been thinking about what wisdom I want to share before I lose you to the bigger world.
I wanted to teach you, to reach you, to entreat you, to have you put your phone down and listen. Consider me an ancient, slower version of TikTok. But the more I think about it, the more I realize, instead of lecturing you on eating burgers and the methane the cows produce, on wasting water and driving gas guzzlers, and turning off lights and not using plastic, and all the things I am worried about for your future, and what I think you should be doing, I realize what I really need to do is apologize. I didn’t use the wisdom I was given by those grandmothers, those elders my sister and I supposedly learned from.
Ya see, we grew up after World War II, and everything was booming. America was on the go. Our young country was manufacturing everything, and we were buying everything. The men in the gray flannel suits told us what we needed, and we believed them. And then they went and made the stuff. And we, like lemmings, went out and bought the stuff.
We thought we’d never run out of anything. Who ever thought there’d be a shortage of oil or copper, or water, or even clean air? How naive we were. We didn’t give extinction a thought. Nature was at our beck and call.
I remember when “Silent Spring,” the book about the detrimental effects of pesticides, was published. I think it moved me, but I still sprayed mosquitoes with DDT. I remember when they told us the ozone layer had holes in it, and the sun was dangerous, and the planet was heating up. I think I quit using my Aqua Net hairspray and thought, “I’m doing my part.”
And then we started seeing pictures of landfills, and we all ran out and got the recycling bins, and we stopped using plastic straws. And we patted ourselves on our collective backs. But with all our tiny attempts to make changes, we didn’t pass any gun control legislation. And we let the pharmaceutical industry, with their 180 lobbyists, let the opioid crisis happen. And we stood by while Monsanto sprayed our crops with poisons that we are ingesting in our breakfast cereals.
Oh, some of us marched (I only went to two), and signed petitions (I admit I didn’t sign that many), knocked on doors before elections (I did for a few days, but it was so cold in New Hampshire that year). And my worst offense, for which I owe the biggest apology, is we let a climate change denier become president.
And now I know nothing I did was enough. I have left you with a planet that is burning up, schools that are training your teachers to save you from mass shootings, food that is dangerous for your health, air that is toxic for you to breathe, a college education that is impossible to afford, a society that is polarized, angry, and terrified, and now we’re on the verge of losing our democracy, which I never realized was an experiment and so very fragile.
So instead of lecturing about how you should be living your life, I want you to know I understand why you and so many of your friends have your heads in your phones. After all, we had our heads in the clouds.
