......pretending everything is alright

Behind the house, up on the hill there are hundreds of these beautiful Mariposa lilies...
they like it dry and hot.

Yesterday I picked my 12 year old grandson up from the school bus...

as soon as he was in the car he asked me about the Gulf of Mexico and the oil spill..
.a spill doesn't sound too bad, does it...
he wanted to know if it had been plugged up yet.



I told him that they had just finished cutting it and the cut was jagged so no one was sure if the cap would stay on...


He asked me if it was going to be alright
I thought for a moment he might cry and that I might too
...my immediate impulse was to tell him yes, it will all be alright
...but all the evidence and my inner knowing says the opposite


...It's not going to be alright...
this 'spill' is a big deal.....
we've all been taught that killing the ocean will led to extinction....
I needed to tell him my truth..
I don't want someone I trust to tell me one thing when all the evidence tells me the reality is really something very different...

I believe that's called gas-lighting and it's a powerful killer of trust...
and I don't do it....


but I didn't know what to tell him...
the possibilities are so horrific...


we will see a lot of the effects right away..
.many species are nesting and reproducing in the area...
we're talking about the extinction of hundreds of species...



We are also looking at health effects on people on countless people as the oil spreads along the coast...


But it's the cumulative effects over time that look so scary...it's becoming pretty clear that the immediate death and destruction is nothing like what may be coming down the road...



I was at a loss of what to say to my beautiful, concerned grandson...
the truth felt like too much of a burden to place on him, but a lie wouldn't work...

So I told him I didn't know...I just knew it wasn't good and that it was going to take few miracles to come out of this mess and that we,
as the people who make our homes on this planet need to demand accountability and do everything possible to let go our our oil addiction....


and you know what?
..... even that didn't feel good..
I don't see accountability happening, nor do I see a lessening of our addiction to all things oil,,,even if 'we the people' wanted change is there anyone listening?


...I think we may already be too late...it might take a while for the full impact to hit...but I see mass starvation as a real possibility and that might not take too long at all.



I couldn't tell my grandson that.