Yellowstone National Park is magnificent, majestic, gorgeous. My week there was miserable.
The trouble was not with the Park, nor with my tour group. The trouble was with the three-alarm response my immune system sends out. A grain of pollen might as well be an invasion from Mars. I’m thrown into laryngeal spasms: convulsive coughing and an inability to start or finish words. Silenced.
Yellowstone is not unusually filled with allergens. I’ve been through these flareups other times, other places. Last week, besides the laryngeal spasms, I was sleep deprived and dealing with a virus. Add to that the elevation. I was far too tired to keep up with the group.
And so I found myself voiceless and exhausted, sitting within the massive log walls of the Old Faithful Lodge. Gradually a group of overweight middle-aged men filled in the chairs near me. When all the chairs were filled, a newcomer sat on a radiator rather than ask me to move. Old friends, the guys began shooting the breeze: sports, travel, TV, politics. A swipe at Biden; another at DEI. I listened idly, since I couldn’t have spoken in any case.
Suddenly a sentence leaped out at me. The most outspoken among them argued that one particular group of the undocumented should not be deported, at least not in the way it’s being done. In his words, they had crossed the border, said “Hi, I’m here,” then got jobs and built lives. He understood that the rule of law – I doubt he’d use that exact phrase -- might require that some be eventually deported. “But not like this. They don’t deserve this.”
I remembered my last post, about personal conversations across our political lines. At that level, it’s more important to connect than to convince. We need to weaken the assumption that only on our side of the line is there any truth.
If I had had a voice, I would have said “I agree.” And that would have been enough. One more chink out of the walls that separate us.
As hard as the week was, it left me not only with that one special memory but with many things to think more about. In particular, the concept of wilderness. What is it, exactly? Does it still exist? Is it worth preserving? Why? And how?
A couple of lighter observations. Kudos for a Park that forbids plastic water bottles. Hotels give away metal ones. Thumbs down to a state that does not require grab bars in hotel showers. Unsafe!
Finally: What gives us such pleasure in seeing wild animals in the wild?
More soon.
Listening was probably a great contribution. If you would have been able to provide any contrary thoughts, would it have softened any hearts? Would it have caused any changed opinions?
Wilderness. Is it within or without? Whatever it means!
Michael McAuliffe
Your combinations of these things: conservative/MAGA and liberal USians views of each other, their views on policy-related topics, and modern human pleasure in seeing "charismatic animals" seem to me linked by our current USian floundering between stereotypical fictions and vivid living beings.
If you had told those men "I agree," I suspect that they would have assumed that your politics were theirs. But if they had known that your politics were not theirs, they might well not have heard you, because of the fictional version of liberals current in MAGA world. While from your side, you were grateful to hear grounds for possible real conversation despite the dismissive liberal stereotypes about MAGAs.
Within the example you gave, the hope you found was in the man who recognized the existence of immigrants who actually exist, decent people crossing the border to seek work, join and support community, and not fictional insect-like swarming immigrant bogypersons.
And as for many animals, we have distanced ourselves from so many, and seldom think about them, or think of them in Yogi Bear terms-- but there they are! Living, and going about their business with awesome self-possession. (For some reason we find it harder to rejoice the living presence of ants and squirrels, preferring to view them purely instrumentally, categorically stereotyping them.)