I just returned from a short trip to Nantucket (my first time!) and your passage about islands and the "sea of life" (as opposed to isolating) landed so wonderfully. I could not agree more and appreciate your writing (and thinking) very much.
Thanks very much for the kind words. There's a power to islands and the journeys they entail, isn't there? The metaphors are endless, which speaks to how easily we make meaning of them.
I grew up, in part, on the Cape, looking out to the Vineyard and Nantucket. Hardly got out there, though, which is too bad. For all of the high-rent reputation, they're lovely places to be.
Indeed! As the mainland recedes and the island comes into focus, it was like moving between worlds. But no doubt the contradictions of such spare weathered design on much of the island juxtaposed maseratis and private jets, were stark. I was staying in a third-generation owned home in the historic African-American neighborhood as a guest of the family and spent much of each day on my bike, pedaling the windswept landscape. I have Quaker roots in Maine, and so was fascinated to learn more about the Society of Friends population on the island (and their boom and bust when it came to whaling empires.)
Moving between worlds, indeed. As for the history, that sounds fascinating. "Quakers and Whales" seems like the title for a book worth reading.... And yes, it's lovely cycling out there.
This is a beautiful and thought provoking essay. I have also been thinking about what it means to be an environmentalist. I live in IL and I belong to the Sitka Salmon Fish CSA out of Alaska. I love the fish that we receive from them, but the fossil fuel used for transportation is not ideal. I recently looked into switching to local fish out of the Great Lakes. Things got complicated quickly. The Great Lakes and the fish in them appear to be more polluted than the fish we are getting from Alaska. This means people are advised to eat fish from the Great Lakes once every week or month depending on the fish and the lake. I find that to be pretty disconcerting, given that PCB's and other pollutants build up in our bodies too. I think we are going to take a hybrid approach and shrink our Alaska CSA share and add small quantities of local fish to our diet. I am also going to try and learn more about the benefits of consuming small fish like shad as another way of eating local while minimizing pollutants.
Thanks, Bill. Yes, the fish calculation is a conundrum, like so many others. (Responsible beef? Hybrid car?) Here in the Gulf of Maine things are really shifting, and that's on top of the long-term depletion of fisheries that are being managed but in some cases are still remnant populations. I think part of the calculation comes down to what part of the food chain is best to extract from. Saw a Sylvia Earle interview a while back in which she said, I think, that it was hard to justify eating any fish at all. Big fish need the little fish, little fish need the krill, etc. Farmed fish are being fed fish meal from massive extraction of the small fish. And there's the transport, as you noted, which is complicated in itself. Bulk transport over distance is efficient and maybe better sometimes than local inefficiency? And then there's the toxicity load... Ugh. I certainly don't have good answers, which if they exist are probably specific to where someone lives.
I just returned from a short trip to Nantucket (my first time!) and your passage about islands and the "sea of life" (as opposed to isolating) landed so wonderfully. I could not agree more and appreciate your writing (and thinking) very much.
Thanks very much for the kind words. There's a power to islands and the journeys they entail, isn't there? The metaphors are endless, which speaks to how easily we make meaning of them.
I grew up, in part, on the Cape, looking out to the Vineyard and Nantucket. Hardly got out there, though, which is too bad. For all of the high-rent reputation, they're lovely places to be.
Indeed! As the mainland recedes and the island comes into focus, it was like moving between worlds. But no doubt the contradictions of such spare weathered design on much of the island juxtaposed maseratis and private jets, were stark. I was staying in a third-generation owned home in the historic African-American neighborhood as a guest of the family and spent much of each day on my bike, pedaling the windswept landscape. I have Quaker roots in Maine, and so was fascinated to learn more about the Society of Friends population on the island (and their boom and bust when it came to whaling empires.)
Moving between worlds, indeed. As for the history, that sounds fascinating. "Quakers and Whales" seems like the title for a book worth reading.... And yes, it's lovely cycling out there.
This is a beautiful and thought provoking essay. I have also been thinking about what it means to be an environmentalist. I live in IL and I belong to the Sitka Salmon Fish CSA out of Alaska. I love the fish that we receive from them, but the fossil fuel used for transportation is not ideal. I recently looked into switching to local fish out of the Great Lakes. Things got complicated quickly. The Great Lakes and the fish in them appear to be more polluted than the fish we are getting from Alaska. This means people are advised to eat fish from the Great Lakes once every week or month depending on the fish and the lake. I find that to be pretty disconcerting, given that PCB's and other pollutants build up in our bodies too. I think we are going to take a hybrid approach and shrink our Alaska CSA share and add small quantities of local fish to our diet. I am also going to try and learn more about the benefits of consuming small fish like shad as another way of eating local while minimizing pollutants.
Thanks, Bill. Yes, the fish calculation is a conundrum, like so many others. (Responsible beef? Hybrid car?) Here in the Gulf of Maine things are really shifting, and that's on top of the long-term depletion of fisheries that are being managed but in some cases are still remnant populations. I think part of the calculation comes down to what part of the food chain is best to extract from. Saw a Sylvia Earle interview a while back in which she said, I think, that it was hard to justify eating any fish at all. Big fish need the little fish, little fish need the krill, etc. Farmed fish are being fed fish meal from massive extraction of the small fish. And there's the transport, as you noted, which is complicated in itself. Bulk transport over distance is efficient and maybe better sometimes than local inefficiency? And then there's the toxicity load... Ugh. I certainly don't have good answers, which if they exist are probably specific to where someone lives.
Paddles up!
Look forward to reflections post trip🚣🏼♀️!
Thought provoking entry today..
Thank you, Laurie. It will be beautiful out there. Weather is looking mostly good...