Susan Gillotti

For the first global earth exchange, I went to my favorite spot along a quiet brook. I had a favorite stone on which to sit, at the water’s edge, and I often put my feet in the water to cool myself after a day of writing. I named the brook “Writer’s Brook.” I wrote about the experience, expressing sadness that so many fallen branches cluttered my view of the opposite side. “Wounded,” I said to myself, “wounded because this place could be even more beautiful than it is.” I vaguely wished that paid landscapers would come along to make it “perfect.”

I got my comeuppance the following year. I learned that we could often leave things alone. Hurricane Irene hit Vermont hard, ripping out a dam that formed a swimming hole above the brook. In its wake, it took care of the fallen branches by pushing them further downstream. “Be careful what you wish for,” I said to myself this time—because while the branches had disappeared from sight, many hundreds of Vermonters had been devastated by the damage. Several months later, a road crew came along and shored up a road that had previously been hidden by foliage. The brook now had one hundred yards of rip rap stone where once there had been birds and bees.

For the third global earth exchange, I was out of commission. My husband had had two major surgeries and I was working nonstop of two manuscripts, his and mine, that had deadlines. I was caught in the tension between creativity and wreckage.

This year, for Radical Joy’s fourth global earth exchange, I went back to the brook. It was Memorial Day, fitting for what this movement is all about. Birdsong filled the air, the brook was running free, and a blanket of new green growth had established itself in the rip rap. I felt impelled to walk up the hill to where the swimming hole had been. The collapsed dam was still there—the town is debating how to rebuild the pond—but there was something new. Someone had placed a wounded chair at the edge of where the swimming hole had been. To its right, in the water, was a stone altar. I realized that I was not the only one who felt this place was sacred. Someone other than myself was also holding a vigil. I took a picture, not wanting to risk coming back on June 22nd to find that the chair was gone. Nature’s good work is returning. It always does, if we stop tampering.