To My Parents on Earth Day 2020
Armstrong Redwoods, June 2019 photo of the author by Genevieve Gimenez
To My Parents on Earth Day
Earth Day was not part of your world growing up – it didn’t have to be, for during that time among you and your friends there was basically a respect for mother earth; corporations had just begun to sell off jobs and our planet for profit. But for me, and all the rest of your children, grand children and great grandchildren Earth Day is a reminder of what is ours to protect. And I thank you for bringing me up to have an abundance of reverence for Mother Nature.
I am not certain when this unlimited reverence began, but one of my earliest memories is of our Sunday drives out to the country where we would stop at a little diner type restaurant to order up a piece of home made apple pie. On the way there we drove through what to me looked like an enchanting tunnel of trees. IDK what kind of trees they were, but there were rows of them bending toward each other from their side of the road, creating shade and to me magic as we drove through. I remember loving those trees.
As the years pressed on my father and I would go on walks around the neighborhood naming trees and being awestruck by their majesty. Once I recall at my nephew’s high school graduation in New Hampshire there was the most delightful scent during his ceremony. My dad looked around and saw a tree in bloom. Noticing I was looking around too he pointed to the tree and asked, “ Hey Margaret, what kind of tree is that?” “Honey Locust,” I beamed. Years later when my parents would come to Cali our ritual was to make time to walk through Armstrong Woods – and so like my father I LOVE TREES.
Forward from the apple pie trip a few years to my love of the sea . . .
My mom took me with her when I was about 9 years old (yes about 25 years agoJ) to buy our winter home in Florida. We stayed at an adorable hotel on the beach called The Happy Dolphin - little did I know that this trip would impact my respect and love for marine mammals for the rest of my life. With a bit of pleading and reservation my mom agreed to let me go out on a Hobie 14 with the hotel’s sailing/rec person. Naturally, I loved the feeling of the wind and sea, but what enticed me more was the little Hobie Cat being surrounded and I mean, back in the day surrounded, by a large pod of dolphins, babies included. Forever imprinted in my memory are the baby dolphins jumping out of the sea within 10 feet of me doing flips in the air, but I have to say more than the visual memory is the feeling of experiencing such great joy at seeing these wild and free animals putting on a show of their love and trust to me; to humans. To this day it is one of the most compelling memories that propels me forward in protecting our oceans and marine mammals.
My father seemed have no fear of our wild and grand oceans and would take me body surfing in waves from when I was quite young basically up until he was like 80 something (he will be 90 in October). We rode some big waves getting tumbled and tossed from Myrtle Beach to Maui, to Mexico to Florida and I’m sure some stops in between. So although my parents and I swim in a vast sea of political differences it is because of you mom and dad that your eldest child is an ardent dolphin-loving, tree hugger, No Plastic Tuesdays, free-spirited protector of the wild and fierce beauty that we call home.
Happy Earth Day 2020 Mom & Dad!
Stay true,
Margaret Grace