Cold day, warm hopes for a cool planet

We gathered near the City Park lagoon this afternoon, all 500-or-so of us, part of a global series of rallies on the eve of the Paris Climate Talks (COP21). Millennials, boomers like me, even-older folks, a mom with her infant bundled against her chest, young families, a few quiet dogs (in arms or on leashes), campaigners for Bernie Sanders, anti-frackers, members of interfaith or environmental groups. Almost everyone in warm hats and boots, as it was below freezing and patches of ice and snow still covered the ground. My "peeps", in other words. These days I love being in intergenerational groups, a reminder that all of us have a stake in the future of the planet.

Sometimes, with people my own age, it’s easy for conversations to bog down in the failures of the past, the many efforts at social change that we’ve participated in or watched, either derailed or co-opted. Buddhists might say we should not be "attached to outcomes". Yet, we need, if not successful outcomes, signposts that we're part of the good fight, the struggle, the human need to nourish the sprouts of a better world. We might see short-term results, but not the long-term results. As my former grad school prof, the late Dr. Marie Wirsing, used to say, “If you’re going to work for social change, you’d better be in it for the long haul.” A decade-plus older than I was, she had seen even more failures, but at the same time the value and necessity of standing up for what’s right and what’s possible.

It seems like thousands of people were doing that today around the world, and there are many photos of them at this site. No Denver photos at the time I posted this, but there should be later. My favorite is this news photo from Paris, where all demonstrations were banned following the recent terrorist tragedy. Shoes took the place of people. Likewise, perhaps every person who marched represents someone who could not, for one reason or another. 

In Denver, the bandshell was draped in Tibetan prayer flags, filled with notes and hopes and intentions from community groups and schools, dating back to ’09 when hopes were riding on the Copenhagen climate talks. Lots of talk at that one. Today the same sentiments infused hopes for the COP21, which starts tomorrow, convening in a climate-worsened world. There were two banners, one from Fossil Fuel Free Denver, a group working working to push the city toward more renewable energy, and the other from the Colorado chapter of Interfaith Power and Light, “a religious response to global warming”. The group whose mailing list I’m on—350.org—was one of the 10 sponsors of this event. Many other signs popped up amid the woolly hats, including those with puns I never tire of: “Don’t say frack to your mother”, and “There’s no Planet B.” Host emcee was Rev. Peter Sawtell from Eco-Justice Ministries, who promised that the rally would be exactly one hour long, and it was, a relief to those of us who found our fingertips and toes giving us grief near the end point. 

I thought back to the pre-Internet era, starting in the 60s when I came of age politically. The digital age has brought benefits amid the distractibility it promotes. I mused on rallies I had attended, usually starting on “anarchist time” or “feminist time” or whatever other time signaled it wouldn’t start at the appointed time. Speakers often spoke way too long on subjects the audience already knew about. The end point was usually on “counterculture time” also. Today’s event featured a number of speakers, all of whom spoke succinctly. Organizers were ready for the inevitable sound system glitch, which was fixed promptly. During the fixing process, we were distracted with chants, such as, “What do we want? Climate action! When do we want it? Now!” Back in operation, the mike was handed to a woman who had trained with Al Gore (remember An Inconvenient Truth in ’05? Click here for recent fact-checking of this landmark documentary). Later came a young woman from Environment Colorado, who reminded us we’re the first generation (or did she say generations?) in history to have this crucial opportunity to impact the climate of the future. Listening to her connect with us, call-and-response style, reminded me of Dr. Wirsing’s words. Each era has had losses;  any future course will encounter setbacks, but there is also opportunity to make a difference. 

The last 15 minutes or so was involved in photographing and recording a 30-second video which would be sent to President Obama, who will arrive in Paris tomorrow. Yes, clearly we were in the Internet age. No worries about the lack of TV cameras. No worries about the relatively small turnout; rather we were told the rally was even larger than last time. The important thing was the Facebook, Twitter and other digital coverage, the fact that our video would be sent, and that our photos would appear alongside those of the thousands of others around the world whose hopes for the future were also pinned on climate action now. Five speakers each said one sentence for the video. Afterwards the crowd yelled, “Yes, we *can* do it, now, now, now!” We rehearsed this 5 times. Earlier, we had been encouraged to whip out our cell phones and take a picture of our friends to post digitally. (I had left my non-smart flip phone at home.) Many complied with this request, friends huddling and leaning into smiles, duly recorded. Finally, video mission accomplished, the rally ended. Really, it's just the beginning, Rev. Sawtell reminded us. Some participants were headed over to Colorado Boulevard to wave their banners, but most of us looked headed for home, hoping to defrost our toes, encouraged and warmed by the event.

Journeying through time with the film characters in Brooklyn

Spoiler alert: Reading this blog entry will give you plot of this film. 

Brooklyn is a beautiful and powerful movie. It’s the story of Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), a young Irish woman who arrives in mid-20th century Brooklyn to begin a new life. She’s left behind a mother, a devoted older sister, and a small town in County Wexford that feels too small for the life she wants to create. After an initial bout of homesickness, she has a remarkably good first year in Brooklyn, where she rents a room in a boarding house and starts a job at an upscale department store. Thanks to a kindly priest, she has the tuition for a bookkeeping course in night school. Then one day, at a parish dance, she meets Tony, a sweet Italian charmer with an eye for Irish girls. They fall in love—and then the plot turns. The sudden death of her sister brings Eilis back to Ireland, where she faces a dilemma that forms the crux of the film. Should she stay in her beloved Ireland—where her mother is now aging alone—or should she return to her life in America, the life she has begun to love.

Brooklyn, based on Colm Toibin’s novel, touched me deeply. It goes back to a time half a century ago or more when a labor-needy US welcomed a huge number of immigrants—no background checks required. The film’s protagonist embodies one of thousands of young Irish who emigrated during a spike in unemployment at home. Most went to the London or other places in the UK, but a good number came here, passing through the same Ellis Island where my own maternal grandparents arrived more than 100 years ago.

The art, more than the history of the film, shaped my response. Brooklyn has top-notch acting, a well-adapted screenplay, beautiful photography, and excellent direction.  A friend  of mine who follows the Oscars, bets this one will get it’s share of Academy Award nominations; it’s already a film festival favorite. It’s the subject matter, though, that made the film so powerful for me. Brooklyn is an immigration story that is relevant to all of us who leave our hometowns to make lives in other places. What is the nature of the life left unchosen? What is the cost of leaving it behind? 

There is no real doubt about the choice Eilis will finally make, but the film does present a choice. It’s the choice every immigrant faces—at least those with the option to return home: to continue making a life in a new and promising though unfamiliar world or to remain in a world where one is known and loved. Things looks different when Eilis returns home for her sister’s funeral. The limited life she had foreseen in Ireland before she emigrated seems different now. She has been offered her sister’s old job, the landscape seems open and uncrowded, and most crucially, she connects with Jim, a shy young man who wants to see more of the world and of her. She comes to like him a great deal. Jim also has prospects—the large house and family business (a pub) his parents are leaving behind, and he is clearly getting ready to propose. Her mother wants her to stay. It looks like she might. But then an encounter with a mean-spirited former employer reminds her of why she left in the first place: the petty cruelties of gossip and social control in this small town, the future life that could be finer than the one she once envisioned, but limited all the same.

As a 3rd-generation descendant of immigrants (from Poland and Ireland), I should have had no issues with the choice the protagonist makes in this film. On feminist grounds if nothing else. A look at Irish history circa 1950 almost no job opportunities for women. And a powerful and restrictive Catholic Church made life there much worse for women who transgressed social norms. The films Philomena (2013) and The Magdalene Sisters (2002) come to mind here. Watching Brooklyn, I should have been cheering for the protagonist’s return to the possibilities of freedom. Yet, I wasn’t. I sat there during Eilis’ stay in Ireland, silently willing her to stay there—until it was clear she could not. 

A few thoughts of Eilis’ future started flitting through my mind. Success, we know, won’t depend on the choice of place alone. The key involves the very specific people and experiences that populate it. In New York, Eilis could well be part of a fun-loving Italian family, the wife of a man who loved the Brooklyn Dodgers and had big plans to start a construction business on undeveloped Long Island. We can imagine a happy life filled with family and financial security. Or not. It was the 1950s after all. Would she disappear into the kitchen, while Tony and his brothers watched baseball and ran the show? Would the sweet young man who adored her stay true? As the decades passed, would she see Ireland grow and prosper while America’s problems seemed to multiply? Would she bring her mother to live with her—or would her mother insist on finishing her life in Ireland? Would Eilis ever see her mother again and would that matter to her when she became old? Conversely, would life necessarily be so limited if this spirited girl married Jim? Perhaps they’d travel together or move to London or do something else that neither could envision at the time. Her mum would likely become a grandmother who knew her grandkids. Or not. Pub work could lead to alcoholism, and life in Wexford could become lonely or bitter. The future remains remains hidden, not yet created. No doubt this uncertainty is why choices can be so wrenching, especially when we’re young. We don’t know how they’ll turn out. We can only guess and hope. The screenplay leads us to see that Eilis was making the best guess possible.

It took me awhile to realize that in watching Eilis in Ireland,  I was reviewing and mourning the places I had left behind. The character of Eilis in Brooklyn was taking me back into my own un-lived life choices. Good movies can do that—draw us in and make us a part of a parallel story.

I left Chicago for Colorado when I was 27. Somewhat like Eilis, I had lost sight of how to build a life in my hometown. Moving to Colorado brought a new set of freedoms for me—a chance to live outside of Chicago for the first time, to test my mettle in a new place—a beautiful place, where I quickly took to hiking and backpacking and exploring The West. Though I missed my family and friends, I made new ones over time. I got a job in Denver, a city that was starting to develop from cowtown to metropolis. Then a year after I moved, my father died. I returned for the funeral but did not stay. No one expected that I would. Years passed. I was part of a vibrant feminist community, I had a partner, a job, and then after 4 years of night classes at the University of Colorado at Denver, a master’s degree in education with a specialty in teaching English as a second language. After struggling with the job market and a changing relationship with my partner, I went to Japan for a year or two to live and work. It was exhilarating to live in such a very different culture, working in a field I had trained for. That year stretched into many more—20, and during that time my mother passed away. I came back for the funeral and then returned to Japan. Paula, my former partner, died a year before I left Japan and returned to Colorado.

I can imagine the fictional Eilis looking back on her life in America when she was an old woman, content that she had made the right choice by following her heart and instincts. But I’m guessing she would also mourn the loss of her unlived life in Ireland, her separation from her mother and the relationships that might have been nurtured there. As do I, though the feelings are never quite in balance. On some days the mourning washes over the contentment. On others, it’s the reverse. And on still others, I just accept the past and wade into the future—wondering and hoping.

Photo credit