“How many years of travel…international, like this, do you think we have left?” I ask between deep breaths. Even at 70, Stephen still glides up mountains. He looks to his left, out over the cliff edge to the sea.
“Ten. At most.”
We keep climbing, sinking into the reality that still feels unreal.
“I was thinking more like 15. Hoping for that, at least,” I murmur, before retracting my words. “Actually, nah, I think the sooner the collapse comes, the more hope there is for some kind of future.”
Stephen grunts in acknowledgement as we reach the crest of the hill and stop, staring out at the Irish Sea from an eroding perch off the northwest coast of England. The crashing rhythm of waves rises from the grey pebbled shore and the first yellow gorse flowers, indicating spring on the horizon, pop from the spiny bushes lining the cliff edge. A flock of seagulls circle lazily, patient and at home in their hunger. On the southern horizon, I see a wide chimney rising above a vast industrial complex.
“That’s one of England’s first nuclear plants,” Stephen muses. “They’re decommissioning it. Gonna take 30 years and cost something like 20 billion quid.”
My gaze carries me into the haunted desolation I feel near nuclear power plants. Particularly this one, situated on a coastline likely to be flooded from sea-level rise within a decade or two. I wonder what happens to the 30 year decommissioning plan when the first wave crashes through the front doors of a complex devoted to splitting life in half.
“Who do you think decided to put nuclear stations along coastlines?” I ask.
“Well, considering the other option was London…” Stephen chuckles. “I reckon it’s just a matter of keeping it away from population centers. They’re all over the coasts of this country.”
We fall silent. My attention drifts out over the water to the dancing light atop the grey churning, and to all the life below its surface. A slit in the clouds on the far horizon splashes a bit of yellow across the sky, revealing the near-perpetual “golden hour” light of British winters. I feel the longing in my belly that only the sea evokes and I wonder how it will be possible to die anywhere other than at the ocean.
I’ve noticed the thought rising in my experience more and more these days. Where do I want to die? It’s popping into casual conversations even, and I’ll find myself laughing and responding “well, I like it, but I don’t think I want to die there yet,” when people ask me how the move to North Carolina has been. “I still think I’d rather die in Montana.” And now in those moments I’ll have to remember about the ocean.
I wrestled with the choice to come over to the UK. My work and my life are devoted to the earth, to helping others fall in love with “nature” because we only fight for what we love. The earth saved my life and brought me back to my soul after a half-decade of despair. I want to limit my hypocrisy and lead by example in giving up travel, going vegan, and researching my clothing choices as an expression of my love. I’m being humbled to realize it’s not so simple.
Stephen and Jeannie saved my life too. I don’t know how many more opportunities I’ll have to sit with them, to hear their laughter and their stories. I don’t know how many chances I’ll have to simply share my presence as my most honest thank you. All those years ago, when I showed up on their doorstep in shambles, they saw beneath my mess and gave me a chance. They held vigil as the bottom fell out on who I thought I was and showed me the way to a meaningful life. Without them, I probably wouldn’t be on earth anymore.
“So, I’ll just have to come every year for the next ten years,” I say, breaking the silence. Stephen laughs.
“I’ll just buy one of those caravans down there and rent it to you for a reasonable rate of a thousand pounds a week.”
I laugh. This is how it’s always been with him – walking and sitting beneath a bleak sky, wrestling with the deepening knowledge of humanity’s peril, and always cracking jokes. As a mystic, Stephen lives with a foot in the knowing of how okay everything is even when it’s not, always redirecting my attention to the love that is the fundamental fabric of reality. When I was younger and less able to laugh, he’d get me there by handing me a chocolate bar. These days, he seems to trust me to get there on my own.
I have so many questions about it all. What about privilege? Who am I to tell anyone suffering that everything is okay when for me, for now, it actually is? Wouldn’t the courageous choice be to wrap up my time here and stare down a final goodbye like so many of my ancestors have done; to get on that plane back across the Atlantic and burn my passport as a ritual of my commitment to the beech trees of western Appalaichia and that one rhododendron I lay beneath and promised my life to? Wouldn’t the “spiritual” choice be to take up residence in the impermanence of all things and know that my life is but a fleeting dream, giving myself now to the emptiness awaiting us all?
Goodbyes have always been my kryptonite. I stay in relationships too long. I stay at parties too long. I stay in bed too long. I love life and I don’t want it to end. I love earth and I don’t want it to die. And here I am. Dying with a dying earth, one and the same, loving and burdening the costs of that love. To burn the passport while the passport still matters is to short-circuit the remainder of the most significant human relationships I’ll likely ever have. To not burn the passport and make plans for “the next time over” is to support the machine killing everything.
I stare back out at the sea, feeling Stephen’s presence, deeply aware that it might be years before I see either of them again, deeply aware that in these uncertain times, neither are guaranteed. I think of all the people staring at the sea at this very moment, drawn to it’s eternity just like me; all the people who the wild oceans have escorted to eternity, all the plans drowned in a single wave, all the joyful moments of standing up on a surfboard for the first time and learning how eternity plays. I think of Robert J. Oppenheimer and the despair he felt when he recognized what his life’s work meant. I think of all the stories we’ll never hear.
The tide’s pulling back now. The sun is setting on this short winter day. My mind is tired from wondering and strangely refreshed by the proximity to the water. All over again, I remember how glad I am to be here, for as long as here may be.
