The Daily - Special Episode: ‘An Obituary for the Land’

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

“Nothing comes easily out here,” Terry Tempest Williams, a Utah-based writer, said of the American West. Her family was once almost taken by fire, and as a child of the West, she grew up with it.Our producer Bianca Giaever, who was working out of the West Coast when the wildfires started, woke up one day amid the smoke with the phrase “an obituary to the land” in her head. She called on Ms. Williams, a friend, to write one.“I will never write your obituary,” her poem reads. “Because even as you burn, you throw down seeds that will sprout and flower.”Guest: Bianca Giaever, a producer for The New York Times, speaks to the writer Terry Tempest Williams.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Hi. Hello. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm just so happy to hear your voice. Hi, I'm Bianca Gaver. I'm an audio producer here on The Daily. Oh my God. Oh my God, what are you seeing? Well, right now I'm just, there's no windows around me, but I haven't seen the sky in like a week. And I happen to be working from the West Coast when

the fires started. It's like a haze. I've never experienced anything like it. Yeah. What do you see? And to be honest, I was feeling a lot of anxiety. In fact, last night was the first time we've seen the stars. It's a very claustrophobic feeling, not being able to see the sky. And the other day, I woke up in the smoke,

and this phrase popped into my head. An obituary for the land. And then I just immediately wrote to you. So the subject was checking in. I sent an email to my friend, Terry Tempest Williams. She's a poet. She lives in Utah, and she's written about the West for decades. And so after that email, we got on this phone call,

and we talked about fire and grief and fear and the obituary she wrote. You know, our family, I don't know if you knew this, but we were almost taken by fire on my father's 75th birthday. We all hiked into Granite Park Chalet in Glacier. I think there were 18 of us. And we knew there were fires far away, but everything was safe. We were staying at the chalet. And I had had a dream the night before of bats coming out of the forest in a spiral. And my brother and I were sitting on this rock

outcropping, and I saw this spiral of bats coming out of the forest. And I said, Dan, we have to get out of here. And within an hour, the fires were all around us, and then they got everyone out from the campgrounds. I think there were 24 of us, put us inside the chalet in a circle, and said, the fire's going to come. It's going to roar over the chalet. The windows are going to shatter. You won't be able to breathe.

All the oxygen will be sucked out, and then it will go over, and hopefully we'll be fine. They really thought we were going to die. The fire sounded like a train wreck. Our eyebrows were singed, our eyes were red, we couldn't breathe, and it literally, as the fire came roaring up it by some fluke it went around us and blew up over us and we survived and then it just burned all around us all night, it creates a mosaic. It burns and then it leaks. So it doesn't take everything. And when we walked out in the morning, we had to walk out, I think like 14 miles, the grizzly bears walked out with us just below the hillside. I mean, if I hadn't been in a fire like that, I mean, a real forest fire in the mountains, like what is happening,

if I hadn't felt that force, I mean, the energy that is being expended right now, I mean, I think it's a wonder we're not all in bed. Because we are not neutral bodies. I mean, we are feeling that. And, you know, I just went outside and all of the patio furniture is covered in ash. And, you know, you just think that ash, you know, those are trees, those are bodies, that's fur, that's feathers.

It's everything. And it's, you know, we're covered in it. And anyone who says they're fine, they are dead to this world that is really dying. And grief, I feel like it's a raven on my shoulder. I, you know, I just walk with it every day. And that is the truth. I'm wondering what other fires you've been in and what you saw happen to the land after the fire.

Yeah. You know, as a Westerner, you grow up with fire. I have walked through many burnt forests in Idaho and the West looking for morels because wherever there is fire, the next season is going to be a haven for gathering morels. Another fire that I remember vividly was the summer of 1988 in Yellowstone National Park. And in that instance, one third of the park was burned. And in many instances, And in many instances, new regeneration started within days.

I remember the next summer returning, and it was just a cacophony of new life, new birds, new plants. And it was shoulder high in fireweed, which are these magnificent fuchsia flowers on tall stalks. And even now, you know, with fires in Montana and Wyoming and Colorado and Utah, it's a lodgepole pine, and they have cones called serotinous cones. If you see those on the ground, you can't open them. They're just tight, and they're spiky. But when they feel heat in the tree, when the flames come up, they feel the heat and immediately before the tree is consumed, they open up and the seeds drop before the fire has even started to run. So before those trees are consumed, the seeds have already

been dropped and have already been placed in the ground. Isn't that amazing? Hmm. That gives me hope. I mean, isn't, I just find that that is such a beautiful adaptation. So I just, you know, for me, I think, okay, that is both fact, you know, science, and metaphor. You know, so right now we can't even know what is opening in us, but something is. So I gave you this assignment. And you went with it.

Do you feel comfortable reading some of what you wrote today? Yes, I do. Put this down and get it. Okay. Bianca, what part do you want me to read? Um, maybe toward the end, the part where you directly address the obituary. Okay. The obituary will be short. The time came, and they died to the old ways of being. Good riddance. it was time, a terminal disease,

where humans put themselves at the center of the universe, and in so doing, have been dead to the world that is alive. To the power of these burning, illuminated western lands, who have shaped our character, inspired our souls, and restored our belief in what is beautiful and enduring, I will never write your obituary. Because even as you burn, you are throwing down seeds that will sprout and flower.

Trees will grow and forests will rise again as living testaments to how one survives change. Let this be a humble tribute, an exaltation, an homage, an open-hearted eulogy to all we are losing to fire, to floods, to hurricanes and tornadoes, and the invisible virus that has called us all home and brought us to our knees. We are not the only species that lives and loves and breathes on this planet

called earth. May we raise a fistful of ash to all the lives lost that it holds. Grief is love. How can we hold this grief without holding each other? I will mark my heart with an X made of ash that says, The power to restore life resides here. The future of our species will be decided here, not by facts but by

love and loss. Let us cry every day like rain in the desert. And on my heart I pledge of allegiance to the only home I will ever know. Thank you so much. Thank you.