My Parable of The Golden Grasses of California & The Regionalism of the US
I (and many of you readers) live in this huge country, the United States. It has a lot of different regions from forest, plains (great ones), swampy areas, mountainous areas, even desert! In many ways, I feel kind of spoiled, like I'm somewhat taking it for granted, and wish I had so much more free leisure time to explore and discover this vast land.
Almost two months ago, I took a trip to California that challenged my expectations of the land, which also led to challenging me about the variety and diversity of people and cultures in this country. This experience came after hearing many political commentators on podcasts discuss this regional diversity around the country and how it influences elections and sentiment about our politicians. Trying to understand this surprise-to-me landscape in California has angled me to try getting a better appreciation of the differences of landscape and people around this country.
Before going deeper into this topic, I want to present a short collage of video compiled during a car drive to one of our destinations:
For those who have difficulty seeing, the videos mostly show a view of Californian landscape passing by as the wife and I drive on state highways going through some amount of elevation. This landscape has A LOT of yellow grass that I estimate comes up almost to the thighs or hips. Almost as a contradiction, the video also shows some deciduous trees with green leaves (somewhat spread out on the branches), close and in the distance, sometimes isolated and sometimes in a bunch. A lot of the grass looks expansive and goes far into the distance, while some of it is clumped together in something of a small clearing among a copse of trees.
The yellow grass really shocked me. I had never before visited Oakhurst or gone to Yosemite National Park, but back in March 2003, the wife and I had visited Sacramento and Davis with a day trip to San Francisco then back to Sacramento. The Sacramento Valley and the foot hills then looked green, full of life, and moist. It didn't stand out to me as an anything especially amazing to me, despite how far all that green stretched. We still lived around Boston in 2003, and I grew up in a mix of rural and urban Massachusetts that had a lot of green and rolling hills. The vastness and magnification of the landscape gave me pause, but just making things bigger didn't impress me.
The endless yellow grass this time threw me for a loop, though. It started in the plane even before we landed. Cruising and pulling down to the airport, I could only see road, water bodies, and yellow. I saw so much of it, I thought it was sand, wasteland or desert. We had banked around San Jose, which is close to San Francisco but still a good distance away. Maybe the desert of southern California transitioned to green northern California somewhere between San Jose and San Francisco. Maybe the present drought caused it or maybe the area had A LOT of beaches.
After landing, getting our rental car, and heading east out of San Jose and past San Francisco, I figured out that I hadn't seen desert from the plane. I had seen vast yellow, dry, rolling grasslands. The drive from the two San's to Oakhurst took somewhere between 4-6 drowsy hours (I hadn't slept much the night before) through yellow grasses as far as my eyes could see, over foot hills and into the distance once we got out of the foot hills. Imagine being in an endless vast desert, but instead of desolate sand with nothing else, I saw endless grass. What a shock after seeing that general area all green 15 years ago and thinking about all the produce that comes from California.
The yellow grass put me off, but something about the experience unsettled me: I didn't know if the yellow grass was normal and routine or an abnormal result of dry weather and a drought. The weather in San Francisco doesn't follow the normal course of seasons that I'm used to. Last time the wife and I had visited San Francisco a few years ago, our hosts commented how October provided one of the best times to visit San Francisco because the dampness, the cold, and the fog would fall back. The summer doesn't provide a good time to visit San Francisco because it gets cold and foggy then.
Temperature margins between all the places we visited this time freaked me out a little, too. Between Oakhurst, San Jose, and San Francisco, we faced a range of twenty degrees Fahrenheit, something like 80 degrees in Oakhurst, 70 degrees in San Jose, and 60 degrees in San Francisco.
Even the range of temperatures don't seem to vary so much in and around Chicago when comparing the shore of Lake Michigan to more inland areas. The definition of inland around the Chicago area of Lake Michigan might give a more drastic impression than the temperature differences in California. In California, the distance for changing temperatures seem to occur in the 10's of miles while in Chicago, the differential in temperature seems to occur within half a mile to a mile. It's not so drastic, maybe just three to five degrees but I believe it levels off at somewhere between seven and ten degrees, rather than the twenty degree range in California for a similar traveling time. Then again, I usually travel north from Chicago and a lot of the time on the road can involve a lot of waiting in traffic, A LOT OF WAITING.
The lead up to this trip and encountering this landscape created some cognitive dissonance. We had been hearing about the rise of massive fires daily as we grew closer to the beginning of our trip, and some of the fires had died down enough that our trip wouldn't be dangerous. Yosemite Park first let visitors back into its gates on the day that we visited. While driving into the valley, I looked across the river and saw spots of fire (including one long line going up a hill) that I believe that the authorities had planned to just let burn out because they had it under control.
On the Daily Zeitgeist podcast, based in California, they brought up the massive fires quite bit and also brought up the fact that California was going through an abnormal drought, which contributed to the fires going out of control. I expected to find California more desolate, more dead, but yet not desert. The gold grass went against my expectation, though. Maybe I didn't expect desert, but I think I expected dead grass all along the ground like hay or something. This in between state of the golden grass caused me to do a double take.
How many people do what I do when I do an intellectual or factual double take? How many other people go to Wikipedia or graze the Internet for information? I don't remember the figure, but I remember that I read that Californians or San Franciscans used a huge, almost unfathomable, amount of water just flushing the toilets (which I guess from looking at Wikipedia tonight or a quick Google search, San Francisco is trying to put into place some major water use standards). Other than being gobsmacked about the huge amount of water used to flush toilets and being reminded that humans need to do stuff about preserving water and minimizing our footprint on the Earth, I got the idea that some organizations and individuals were working on the problem. Hopefully they'll address the problem with enough time, but the water felt like a universal human issue, just with some details different here and there.
(Whatever happens, though, stay away from our Lakes!)
Looking into the golden grass that felt off (though somewhat drearily comforting by the end of the rural trip) yielded an interesting result. The golden grass didn't inspire a unique reaction in me. Apparently a lot of tourists feel off put by the golden grass during the dry season. Further investigation digs up people who have California pride about the golden grass. They hate the reactions of non-Californians to the golden grass. To these Californians, the wet and dry seasons are a natural cycle, the grasses going from green to gold is a natural cycle. These "patriotic" Californians see it as completely normal and part of nature, and they feel intruded upon by non-Californians coming into their state and trying to tell them how things should be.
Reading more and experiencing the gold grass, I came to appreciate it as a natural part of California with its own beauty that fits the area. It felt foreign, but the United States is a big place. For the most part, I haven't seen much of it. I've lived just a little over half my life in the northeast, mostly around Massachusetts with most of my traveling being to New Hampshire, Vermont, maybe Rhode Island or New York, and Quebec (as a kid, I also traveled a few times in Maine and once to British Columbia and Prince Edward Island). A little under the other half of my life, I've lived in Chicago and mostly traveled around Lake Michigan and a little into the interior of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and almost to Iowa.
I've done a little traveling to Florida, the Carolinas, and from DC to Blacksburg, VA but most of my East Coast travel has been along the Northeast Megalopolis from DC to Boston. Otherwise, my US travel has included mostly pleasant touristy locations: the Northern California Megalopolis, Los Angeles, Tucson, and not really much else other than highways between Chicago and Boston.
This listing off of places I've lived and visited comes down to something simple: I really haven't experienced much United States of America. Add to that: I haven't visited that many places that have challenged my assumptions. If I did visit such places, I generally passed through town, not really even exposing myself to people in town or the culture of it.
Suffice to say, the Sacramento Valley/Northern California megalopolis genuinely challenged my sensibilities of the United States of America by exposing me to its golden grass. Even just the exposure to
made my ruminating mind that always asks questions (in a good curious way) dive deeper and deeper into questions. I grew to appreciate bigger cars when I earlier felt big cars had become about protecting the drivers from the outside world or some type of display of conspicuous consumption. All the while even in the Midwest and Northeast where I've lived most of my life, trucks and cars with four wheel drive have their places for regular drivers when it snows a ton.
Even just thinking about fire as a routine event boggles the mind. However, living on the northeast coast, knowing that despite hurricanes being rare, they can reach the Boston area and cause some damage. I remember living at the time of Hurricane Gloria. The only time I ran into the basement because of possible tornadoes occurred while I lived in Massachusetts. Still, tornadoes are more likely to occur in the Midwest, though I've never had a serious tornado scare (though I did see the sky turn a sickly green color).
Then temperature and snow. I've ridden my bike in temperatures in as low as -5 or -7 Fahrenheit along Lake Michigan on the way to work with plenty of snow on the ground. Did I mention that sometimes the wind chill at those times could get as low as -20 Fahrenheit (I don't think I've ridden in temperatures lower than that) during the polar vortex of 2014? I think I even walked to bus stop, all bundled up, when the wind chill had gotten all the way down to -50!
I remember talking to a friend at a party who had traveled down to New Orleans or some other location after a hurricane to help rebuild. While down there, the friend asked a hurricane survivor why they continued living in that area, considering all the hurricanes. The survivor brought up the cold of the Midwest, especially during times of extreme cold like in the polar vortex of 2014. My friend and I had reached the conclusion that every geographical area of the United States has it's own variation on natural obstacles that humans have to deal with routinely and sometimes in extreme situations.
That discussion about extreme weather, my experience with extreme weather, and my recent experience in California has impressed upon me how human ingenuity for dealing with the environment and how that coping can mold culture and personality. This article does an interesting job to highlight how the neoliberal practice of extracting natural resources from rural areas to disproportionately benefit urban areas also provides some perspective on how the economy, business practices, and regulations can can affect cultures and personalities (even though the big "oil savior" of shale fracking is generally yielding losses and requiring a lot of borrowing to stay in business).
All these revelations have an abstract tinge and haven't made any concrete landing. The different regions of the United States are all very different and develop different types of culture and people. Even within those areas, many different types of people come into existence and develop. The United States has to come to terms with this status.
I think this revelation has led me to something more of a chilled pessimism combined with hope for a better tomorrow when it comes to nationwide politics these days. I still have some anger, but I don't feel so confident in the direction of that anger, though I feel like I know what's right and what's wrong. I don't think different regions allows for some form of moral relativism. Some people will have no compunction about hurting or marginalizing others because The Other is different or because The Other has gotten in their way.
I believe in a minimum behavior and morality, and many in the United States, aren't meeting that minimum. Nonetheless, I don't have a full picture of how to resolve the matter of many in this nation not meeting the minimum yet having the power to empower and embolden the negative status quo or to continue behavior even worse than the status quo. I say this from a platform of white male privilege, and I wish I had a better understanding and way to correct this issue, but I don't. Especially after the last couple months of confirming a Supreme Court justice in such a way that undermines the confidence of the American People in the institution of the Supreme Court, thus undermining the American People's confidence in the US government.
I want everyone who can to get out there and vote, even if they can only submit a provisional ballot. The lack of confidence that can stop us from voting creates a positive feedback loop. By citizens not exercising their right and privilege to vote, we give away our nation, our state, our government to people who want to just gather together power to further undermine our confidence in the government and institutions so that they can just gather more power. Through our confidence in the heart of our system, through our confidence in our people power, we can help to rebuild a nation, a state, the institutions, and even a world in which we can be proud of and rise far above the minimum to build a truly just country and world. We can all fully realize ourselves by fully interrelating with each other in ways to learn and teach each other something better and something real.
All the signals out there for what our government will look like after November 6 conflict with each other and won't resolve themselves until after the General Election. Since I last heard Nate Silver talk about the Democrat's chance of winning back the government, he had it at Dems have a 75% chance of winning the House and 33% chance of the Dems winning the Senate. Frankly, all the talking about impeaching Trump and Kavanaugh likely will get no where because the Democrats simply won't have the numbers. Maybe the House will be able to start the process, but the Senate wouldn't be able to complete it.
The Resistance needs to continue resisting and working to change people's minds. Nonetheless, the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings have shown how still divided this country is and has even emboldened the Right, possibly to the levels of the "Blue Wave". Turnout will matter big and getting independents to come out and participate. The Democrats have historically been bad at coming out for mid-term elections. Everyone needs to come out to vote for the national, the state, and the local elections.
Local and state elections matter just as much, if not more than the national elections. Those officials have a lot more to do with our everyday lives and making lasting changes. On top of that, those positions can be stepping stones for good candidates to step up and up toward the national level to help determine the big, sensational values to protect and mold the spirit of our nation. Starting now, our votes on the state level now start affecting the district maps getting drawn in 2020-2021. Our votes can help determine how much our states get gerrymandered for the House and the Electoral College. Our voting now and always will play a big part in affecting our lives, our futures, justice, and the spirit and fabric of our nation.
I really really hope a lot of people get out the vote and cast their votes for justice. Maybe the just vote won't be a "pure" vote in the vein of purity politics, but we can determine the future of justice by choosing a realistic good candidate. As bad as it may sound, a good candidate is better than the shit show we have running our nation at the moment. I know electioneering against something isn't nearly as good, powerful, and motivating as electioneering for a positive vision for the future. Sometimes, though, it requires voting and fighting against something negative and horrible to start the turn around to a better, kinder future.
Despite all my motivating words, I still fear for the worst. After the election of 2016, I don't feel like I can truly trust polls and the overconfidence of the people on my side. That overconfidence can stop us from going out to vote. There are arguments that our individual votes mean nothing, and logically, it makes some sense. A lot of people haven't gone out to vote because they felt both big parties made a trashfire of a system and couldn't bring themselves to vote for either party. Regarding the first argument: your vote matters because the Left-Right divide is close enough that a few hundred votes here and there could make a big difference.
As for the second argument, the two parties and the system trashfire has come about because people like Manafort have been successful in destroying our confidence in system. We can only get confidence again in the system if we make it a system to be confident in it, and we all have to participate in making it better, through voting, through donating to parties, candidates, and nonprofits, through volunteering, and engaging civically in society.
So you hold our futures in your hands. Please go out and vote. Please help make this country and the world a better, kinder place.
I have a final correction and ending story that I feel discredits my feeling that everyone is as different as I had come to believe and also attacks the facade of our low-confidence government and system. As things turn out, the golden grasses of California is an invasive species. In one sense, it feels disheartening because the natural fauna that was suited to the local environment (the native plants had a lot more resistance to fire) has died out and likely can't be revived to its past glory, especially in our lifetime.
The golden grasses in California feel like a parable for our passionate partisan divides. People who grew up in California feel strongly about the nativeness of the golden grass. They argue with people outside the region about the naturalness of the golden grass. History has buried the truth of the golden grass's invasiveness, though, much like how the divisions of partisanship has come from the lies of ignorance, essentialism, and history. Like learning about the true native fauna of California, the truth of
can be found and acted upon to make a better world. To do that, though, we have to exercise kindness, humbleness, and desire to
with each other. Exercising all those characters will help us get to a better place for all.
I believe we can do it. I believe you can do it. Now you just have to believe and execute that belief. If you haven't done anything to embolden justice in the world, start with voting on November 6. If you've already voted and done other things, keep on doing it.
Over and above that, though, we all need to humble ourselves, learn kindness and caring, and work really damn hard to learn and work to make the world better. Don't forget to vote on November 6, though, because you can do that while doing all that other great stuff, too.
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