🟠 I love you. I'm glad I exist.

Trophies at Gordon's Stamp & Engraving, a shop I walk by on my way to my crossing guard job.

Hey y'all,

I hope you had a great week!

The three things I'm sharing this week were shared with me by friends and comrades:

1. A children's book: The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater 

My friends Luis and Peggy shared this with in response to last week's dispatch containing a TikTok a neuroscientist made about his favorite house in his neighborhood, a "house that makes people happy."

I thought I'd give the Youtube reading of the book 30 seconds or so to catch the drift, but I gleefully watched the whole thing, and then I watched it again.

I'm a little torn here. I grew up in a colonial suburb of Boston, so I love a neat street of beautifully preserved homes in historically appropriate colors with tidy landscaping... but I also want to be Mr. Plumbean. I want to make my house so fucking weird.


2. A poem: The Orange by Wendy Cope

My friend Julie texted this poem to me with the message, "File under edification of crossing guard musings as life itself" (in response to my near-daily crossing guard updates on Instagram):
 

The Orange

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

3. Salve for my climate grief: Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts, by Jonathan Franzen

David Attenborough once said, “Saving our planet is now a communications challenge. We know what to do, we just need the will." Having spent my entire professional career in communications for environment-adjacent nonprofits, I think about this a lot.

I think the phrase "climate change" is a problem. It's too big, too abstract. Nobody has a personal connection to "the climate"–they have a personal stake in feeding their families, breathing clean air,  their ability to swim in the lake without risk of getting sick from cyanobacteria, in the cute red efts, owls, beavers that live nearby and remind them that the world is, in fact, a wild and beautiful place. All of these things depend on a stable climate, but a movement to save "the climate" isn't resonant enough to inspire the cultural and systemic change we need.

I was talking to a former colleague about this and my desire to see (and work on!) more climate change marketing campaigns that personalize the impacts of climate change and get away from the overwhelming notion of saving the whole planet.

In response, my colleague emailed me this op-ed. It's been sitting in a Chrome window on my phone undread for about five months now. I read it yesterday!

In 2011 Jonathan Franzen fell in love with birds. His op-ed starts off eviscerating modern technology and the way it creates a "private hall of flattering mirrors," about what it means to "like" something versus actually love it, and he eventually gets into how he was only able to sustain working against climate change when he started caring about this one small part of it outside of himself:

"And here’s where a curious paradox emerged. My anger and pain and despair about the planet were only increased by my concern for wild birds, and yet, as I began to get involved in bird conservation and learned more about the many threats that birds face, it became easier, not harder, to live with my anger and despair and pain."

This op-ed pairs well with this On Being Interview with marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson in which she talks about pivoting away from climate communications about science and what we need to stop doing, and towards a sense of a possibility, transformation, and the vibrant and abundant future that's possible if we start using the strategies we already have at our disposal.

My attempt to illustrate why soil health matters and why if you care about the climate, you should support local organic farmers. Made for NOFA-VT.

Thanks for reading!

Christine Tyler Hill is the human behind Tender Warrior Co.