50 http://www.earthislandjournal.org
L
YMAN TELLS ME HE IS WORRIED. “I’m glad I’m old,”
he says. He’s concerned about the now frequent algal
JTWWU[<PM[MI]ZKPQV[IZMOWVM[\IZÅ[POWVMKTIU[QVPQ[
favorite cove, gone, lobsters moving to funny spots. We talk
as I get some eggs down. Five months into pregnancy, I feel
\PMJIJa[P]ټMQV[QLMUaJMTTa4aUIV\MTT[UMIJW]\2M_MTT
1[TIVLW]\XI[\4WVOIVL+TQٺQ[TIVL[QV+I[KW*IaPMZM
they used to watch for the monarch migration. “That’s how
we knew the lobsters were ready,” he explains. The monarchs
were so thick you couldn’t see the sky. But last year, there were
WVTa\WUWVIZKP[Wٺ2M_MTT1[TIVL¹1¼UTWWSQVOIZW]VLº
he says, gesturing with his fork, “and thinking, where is every-
body?” As he talks, his face gets redder and redder. Behind his
glasses the wrinkles around his eyes deepen. The corners of
his mouth droop. “Real worried,” he says quietly.
We pay our bill and walk outside. Lyman waves and heads
down to the wharf, where he keeps his boat. For a moment, I
sit in my car, watching the rain hit the windshield. The wipers
going up and down, up and down. The place where I am
sitting, in my car, next to the diner, will be under water this
century. I look out the window, imagining saltwater creeping
up around the cars in the parking lot, licking the tops of my
tires. I imagine tourists wading through it as they make their
_IaQV\W\PMLQVMZ[\ZMM\[QOV[ÆWI\QVOJaI[\PM_I\MZZMIKPM[
the bottom of my window. The baby kicks. I back up and
start driving home.
W
E BOUGHT OUR FIRST HOME IN MAINE in the
NITT WN IVL ÅTTML _Q\P IV\QKQXI\QWV XTIV\ML
ZI[XJMZZQM[\PMVM`\[XZQVO?MÅO]ZML\PMJ][PM[XZWJIJTa
wouldn’t fruit that year, but they did, in early September. My
husband and I each savored one while we watched our son
toss three into his mouth at once. “More, more!” he said. We
did get more, about three weeks later, and again, we marveled
at the red berries hiding in the bushy greenery. It was an
unusually warm fall, we said, maybe that was why we were
still getting berries in mid-October. We forgot about them
and moved on to other fall tasks, stacking wood, putting the
garden to bed, raking leaves. About a month later, just before
Thanksgiving, I was walking through our yard carrying
LQ[KIZLML\Wa[_PMV[WUM\QVaÆI[PM[WNZMLKI]OP\UaMaM
Raspberries! I thought. My heart swelled at this sweet pleasure,
unbidden on a gray November day. Then my gut clenched. I
felt a burning in my throat. :I[XJMZZQM[' I thought. 1V6W^MUJMZ'
1V5IQVM'T
HE NEXT YEAR, I AM PREGNANT with my second
child and suddenly shrouded in illness. Constant,
LMJQTQ\I\QVOVI][MI)KQLZMÆ]`0MILIKPM[1V[WUVQI1\Q[
like that moment before the moment when you vomit, where
there is a shift in your gut, an awareness deep down that
something is not right. I carry this feeling of dis-ease around
with me constantly, day and night. I wake in the night and am
unable to fall back asleep, with the churning in my stomach
and the feeling moving up through my esophagus and into
my throat, one wrong movement away from losing it.
This feeling, not total chaos but the certainty of being
unwell, the churning in my gut, eventually gives way. But I
still get it sometimes — an unnerving feeling that starts deep
in my abdomen and crawls up around my heart and into my
throat.
For my dissertation, I am talking to people who work
W]\LWWZ[QV5IQVM ̧I[Å[PMZUMVNIZUMZ[IVLNWZM[\MZ[
— about changes they are observing in their landscapes. Like
Lyman, most of them are noticing changes and trying to
ÅO]ZMW]\_PI\\PMaUMIV1[XMVLUW[\WNUaLIa[LZQ^QVO