Like an oyster’s shell, Grace’s family is able to protect her from some things. But we cannot protect Grace from anything outside her shell by ourselves. For that we need the help of our neighbors, community, towns, states, country and planet! She needs her family, but she also needs you. Cameron Russell ended her essay entitled Dear Fossil Fuel Executives, with these words: “We are alive at this moment. What we do now will help decide the fate of our species and most living things on Earth.” Grace’s future will be determined by our collective actions, or for that matter our inactions. Our country and planet are in crisis; it turns out that a required tool for getting through disasters and solving problems is neighborliness. The world is not your oyster, it is everyone’s oyster.
We learned that neighborliness is more critical than ever in our world where extreme weather is becoming common in Unnatural Disasters, an episode of the How to Save a Planet podcast. This episode shares lessons Christine Nieves Rodriguez learned from surviving and recovering from Hurricane Maria - the deadliest U.S. natural disaster in 100 years. Neighborhood networks were critical. They knew who had the generators, who could get clean water, who had the solar panels, who had the commercial kitchen, etc. (BTW, what they did not need is the boatloads of bottled water the rest of the world sent them - and this gesture has left Puerto Rico with an enormous amount of plastic pollution). Listen to the full episode here.
Another example of neighborliness came in our inbox last month. VOCAL-NY shared a story about Jeff; a homeless man. Jeff lived near VOCAL headquarters and VOCAL did the neighborly thing by allowing Jeff to use their bathroom. This small kindness changed Jeff’s life. He got off drugs, found a job, and now has an apartment for himself and his son. Jeff gives the credit for his turnaround to being able to clean up in a nice bathroom. Jeff tells his story here.
(Sharing our personal experiences of neighborliness next week).
Our Grace, was named for beloved family members. The name Grace means courteous goodwill. Grace’s family can protect her from minor disasters. For the big ones, which are here right now, we need neighborliness built on courteous goodwill. The facts are clear, we cannot survive a natural disaster, a pandemic, or a crisis in democracy on our own; we all need the help of our neighbors. Patience, listening and caring for our neighbors is the path to ending climate destruction, initiating equal justice and recovering our democracy.
We cannot cocoon Grace. It would be wrong to focus on a single oyster or build a seawall to protect personal property. We must build reefs and resilience, we must build and protect communities and we have to be good neighbors. Reefs and neighbors can protect us. If we wait or pretend we are not in the middle of several enormous disasters we will fail Grace and her generation. We have to act now. The great news is that we can solve our problems by being good neighbors; this is a joyful proposition. When our kids were small, we did not understand that Mr. Rogers was addressing all our problems when he asked, “Will you be my neighbor?” we do now.
So, while our hearts are heavy, they are also full of hope because we can see a path forward into 2021. We are very grateful for all of you - our neighborhood - we wish you and yours love and joy this year.
Click here to order Fishers Island Oysters for this weekend.