This is an open letter to Clif Clendenen and whoever wants to debate the merits of widening Highway 101 through Richardson Grove.
I’d like to publicly thank the business owners who have made it possible for me to hardly ever need a reason to travel elsewhere to find cool retail. I don’t shop a whole lot but when I want to find a gift or clothes, or plants and seeds for food to grow, I never have to go far. I can shop for good healthy food every day of the week, if I choose. We are blessed beyond measure and surely have more at our fingertips than a large portion of the world’s population. Get closer to the big city and things get a little cheaper, it’s a trade-off. So is it not an honor to be able to live here with one another? What is lacking in the way of retail?
Anyone with a beating heart should (yes, I’m using the should word), anyone should sense the value of this corridor, the need to preserve it intact, as it is.
This is not intellectual comprehension: if it needs to be explained, it cannot be understood.
Awareness is felt as an experience, not described with intellect. If you’re one of these people who feels there might be just reason to widen the road through the grove, please go there. Go there quietly on a Sunday morning, try and get there early and drive through, then turn around and go through the other direction. Enter the park, get out of your car down by the river. Get out and walk, and get close to where we’re talking about making it wider, and just stand there for a moment. (Do you have the time?) Breathe in, and let it all go. It’s an experience, and if it has to be explained, it can’t be understood. Awareness of anything is like that, it’s not an intellectual explanation, it’s an experience. It’s actually quite clear, and although subjective, we can’t argue with someone about an experience they’ve had... having said that I’m reminded of another truth: one can’t preach a moral. So I’ll leave it at that. Because unless you are seriously severed from your own beating heart, I can’t imagine it possible that you could stand there and believe you even had a choice. Go try that. It should leave you feeling a whole lot better than a well-crafted debate, not to mention the clarity you’ll be gifted, free and direct, from some of the oldest living things we’ve got going on.
Sign me grateful for the way the big trees stand.
Cindy Reed
Piercy
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