I have this awful habit of suddenly popping awake at 3 a.m. with the craziest thoughts in my head. Yesterday it was names I could use for restaurants in the current manuscript. Sometimes it's songs I remember from the 70s (that double negative in "I can't see me lovin' nobody but you" still bugs me).
This morning it was The Lorax. And I know just fine why it's in my head today -- it's because I watched news snippits last night about the climate discussion going on in Glasgow. I once heard someone say they weren't an activist; they were an advocate. And there's a big difference. The Lorax was an advocate, giving voice to those who couldn't speak for themselves. In The Lorax, the story ends with a glimmer of hope. The whole book really echoes what we've done to our planet. Dr. Seuss wrote it in 1971. If we had listened to him at the time, we might have been able to end our story with hope as well. But I think the time for that has passed, and now we're reaping the rewards of our own self-centeredness.
I keep returning to that achingly poignant phrase in the Book of Enoch: When will the earth rest?
Not until we've learned, at last, to be kind to it. Or until we're no longer here to torture it.
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