Who do we believe? How do we
behave? These are questions I hold as we watch President Bush make
his case for war. Our Department of Homeland Security recently
placed us on “high alert/code orange,” advised us to buy duct tape
and cover our windows with plastic, then in the same breath told us
not to panic. We were then told a few days later, there had been a
mistake, the U.S. intelligence organizations received a fabricated
message about national security. One wonders if this is not simply
a campaign of fear to keep Americans in step with the impending war
on Iraq, in spite of world-wide opposition.
In times like
these, I turn to my elders. Last week, Brooke and I were in the Bay
Area visiting Mary Page Stegner. At 91, she was as sharp as ever, a
bit more fragile, but completely present. She wanted to know what
our views on Iraq were and how southern Utah was surviving the Bush
administration’s attacks on the environment.
We
wanted to know what she was seeing from her vantage point of almost
a century. She spoke about engagement.
“As long as people
are active and interested in the world around them, I feel
hopeful.” she said. “If people choose to simply watch from the
sidelines and remain silent, then we are doomed as a democracy.
Observer versus participant. I thought about her husband,
Wallace Stegner, how these themes are explored in his novel, “The
Spectator Bird,” which won the National Book Award in 1977. The
protagonist, Joe Allston, watches his life instead of living it. He
changes as he realizes the price one pays for not becoming
involved, be it in a relationship, family struggles or community.
“Democracy requires participation,” Mary said. “What
worries me is that we have all become so cynical that we
won’t act anymore as though our voices matter.”
She
spoke about the ways Wally, in particular, engaged in advocacy
work: his appointment at the Department of Interior under Secretary
Stewart Udall during the Kennedy Administration, where he focused
on the expansion of national parks; his work with David Brower in
opposing the damming of the Green River in Dinosaur National
Monument in the1950s, resulting in the book, ‘This is
Dinosaur.
wrote another little known book called, ‘One Nation,” on the
value of diversity and the wounds of racism. Originally written for
Look Magazine, they never published it. “Too controversial,” said
Mary.
Almost 60 years later, his words read as prophetic:
“Once prejudice has taken form…every fault or weakness
of any individual is likely to be taken as proof of the inferiority
of the whole group. When the vicious spiral is started, it can go
on down like a perpetual motion machine. …In almost every city in
America average and everyday people are becoming aware that they
need to do something about bridging the gap between racial and
religious groups, because it becomes increasingly clear that racial
and religious tensions are the gravest threat to the future that we
face.”
I wondered what Wally would be writing today in
these times of terror if he were still alive, 94 years wise, his
birthday this month on Feb. 18. I wondered if he felt hopeful 10
years ago before his death or if he harbored a quiet pessimism over
all he saw going by way of development in his beloved American
West.
Mary continued talking about hope and
participation. She mentioned a recent celebration by the Committee
for Green Foothills that Wally helped found 30 years ago. She
pointed to the glorious rolling hills outside their living room
window, “This would all be gone if concerned individuals
hadn’t taken charge and done something. Much of the open
space you now see surrounding Stanford University is a result of
this vision in action.”
We had lunch. The conversation
shifted to Italy. I shared recent travels to Florence with her,
knowing the Stegners had lived in an apartment overlooking the Arno
River. She spoke with great pleasure of their regular visits to the
Uffizi Gallery.
“Wally’s favorite Italian painter
was Piero della Francesca,” she said. “I wonder if I still have
that — excuse me.” Mary got up from the table and disappeared down
the hallway. In time, she returned with a large, worn picture of
“The Resurrection,” one of Francesca’s murals in fresco.
Mary passed the picture to Brooke. I stood up and looked
over his shoulder as she pointed to the face of the resurrected
Christ. “Wally felt Francesca captured all the suffering of the
world in this expression.” We noted the intense sadness and empathy
held in the openness of Jesus’ eyes, the strength of his
unwavering gaze.
She then pointed to the men below, sound
asleep. “This always got to Wally, the stark contrast.”
Brooke and Mary continued talking. My mind wandered back to the
question of belief and behavior and where we turn in times of
uncertainty. I noticed the magnificent oak that rises out of the
Stegner deck and shades their home, the hole they cut around its
trunk so it could thrive. I remembered the last time I was here
when Wally was alive and how he told me the story of planting the
tree when it was only 10 feet high, skinny enough to put his
fingers around. Suddenly, I just wanted to find a quiet place and
sit down with “The Spectator Bird” and reread my way back into that
place of engagement on the page and in the world.
Terry Tempest Williams is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News in Paonia,
Colorado (hcn.org). She is the author of “Leap” and “Red: Passion
and Patience in the Desert,” and lives in Castle Valley,
Utah.
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