Blue Dog Nights

So yesterday held the last few hours of my 30s and I decided to kick off work a little early and try my luck at shooting photographs of mullet. And no, not the bad hairstyle variety, but the flying fish variety. It seemed like a challenge and I love a good challenge. I found a nice spot out in the marsh and a relaxing pile of dirt from which to sit upon. And I typically try not to get all philosophical as my birthday approaches, but my mind started to wander a tad.

I’ve been “down de bayou” for a little over a year now. I originally planned on being here for only a year to hopefully help a few people and figure out what it is that I want to be when I grow up. And now I’m forty. How the hell did that happen? And am I supposed to be grown up by now? Cause I don’t feel anymore grown up today than I did yesterday, or a year ago, or five years ago, or let’s just be honest, twenty years ago.

So anyway, let’s just say that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that “what the heck do I want to be when I grow up” stuff lately. I’ve certainly had a great ride thus far and generally speaking I really enjoy where I am. I’ve got a pretty cool job that certainly beats the heck out of sitting in a gray cubicle every day. If I want to get all officialized…my designated job title is Environmental Outreach Volunteer Coordinator. Geez…doesn’t that sound important? And well, it is pretty darn important when I think about it.

Has it been easy getting to this point? Yes and no. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love my job and I one hundred percent absolutely, positively, unequivocally LOVE where I live. But has the last year, two months and change been easy? Well, in a nutshell, no.

You see, I’ve moved to a place that I absolutely adore, but it’s also a place that doesn’t necessarily adore me. I’m an outsider. Always have been and probably always will be. I’m pretty sure I could live here 30 years and still be called a Yankee. Again, don’t get me wrong. I have found some truly amazing people here that I can most certainly call friends, but when it comes to finding some real, “hey I need to sit in a boat, drop a line, have a beer and chat about life” buddies, well that’s been a different story. And yes, I do know myself well enough to admit that I’m not necessarily the easiest person to get to know.

But while bayou folks are extremely friendly, let’s just say that they’re a wee bit quirky. Actually, if I get my psychology hat on, they tend to exhibit a fair amount of paranoia. And probably for good reason. They’ve been promised a whole lot of stuff by a whole lot of people and been let down a whole lot of times. But that doesn’t mean I’m saying that they’re not good people and willing to help a girl out when she needs it. I mean I know if I’m in a jam, there are a bunch of folks that I can call to get me out of it, but just finding someone I can really let it all hang out with has been a challenge. So maybe in one sense the last year and change has been easy, but has it been lonely? Yes, at the end of the day, it has been lonely.

I was talking to a man the other day that I feel I can call friend. He’s a pretty important guy in my book and is a man that I have the utmost respect for. He’s got a whole lot riding on his shoulders. His job entails a great deal of travel and meetings and securing funding and basically all the stuff that I don’t miss about my previous life. I said “Geez, it must be hard to travel all over and sit in all those meetings when you’d probably rather be on a ridge planting marsh grass or paddling around a bayou looking for some fish.” He said “Yes, but I do it so my staff can do what they do best.”

And I thought about the last year and change and started to wonder if that’s kind of what my role is. I may never be truly accepted here, but can I work hard to make a difference in people’s lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren? Well, I certainly hope so. Do I need them to understand that and give me a pat on the back? Well, it’d be nice, but at the end of the day, no.

From the depths of my soul, what I really want is to just see this place still exist in forty years. I probably won’t be here since I’ve not been all that kind to my body during the previous forty years, but I want someone who loves this place the way I do to be able to sit with a camera on the same bank I sat on last night and try to take pictures of mullet flying through the air and watch ospreys and egrets and herons fly overhead and hear owls hooting in the distance and time how long the diving ducks stay under water looking for something eat.

Do I think that can happen? Well, I sure hope so, but honestly, if things continue the way they are right now, in forty years the bank I sat on last night will probably be under 14 feet of water and the herons and the ospreys and the egrets and the owls and diving ducks won’t have any place to land and maybe saltwater sport fisherman will venture this far down to try their luck, but who the heck knows if there will actually be any fish to catch because maybe this spot will just be part of a big giant dead zone.

Does this make me beyond sad? You bet it does. Do I feel like packing my bags and heading someplace else at times? You bet I do. Do I really want to do that? Hell no!

So what is it that I really want to do? I want to stay where I am and fight to restore and protect the place that I have grown to love for the people I have come to care deeply for.  And if you really want to know the truth, what I really want is to get the President, the head honcho of the Army Corps of Engineers, the head of the EPA, and the few handful of other people that really and truly have the power at their finger tips to change things to go fishing with me in Cocodrie. I want them to hook a big ole bull red or two or three or twelve. I want my good buddy Kevin to cook them a delicious Jambalaya. I want my good buddy Wendy to take them up to the Mauvais Bois to teach them about bayou culture and see the wonders of a cypress swamp. I want them to sit on the deck of a camp, kick back with a few cold ones and watch the ospreys and the egrets and the herons and the owls and the diving ducks and all manner of spectacular wildlife and watch a sunset of orange and red and yellow and purple and blue. I want them to see for their own eyes what I love so dearly. Because, in my heart, I believe that if they could experience for a day what I experience every day, there wouldn’t be any question about the national importance of saving the community I call home (even if the people around here don’t think it’s my home). In fact, if we could make that happen, I feel like I could almost guarantee that we could get our priorities straight and saving this place would become job #1 for the United States instead of sending brave men and women off to their deaths half way around the world in the name of democracy.

I mean, how is it that my community is allowed to slip acre by acre in to the Gulf of Mexico every single day and almost no one in Washington, DC seems to give a damn? I mean, really, how is that possible? Do they just not know? How could they not know? Do they just not care? How could they not care? Do they just think we’re not that important? HOW COULD THEY POSSIBLY BELIEVE THIS? How is it possible that they sit idly by while an entire way of life is being sent to its death in their own backyard?

I mean, come on people. I can spout the figures. My communities, my beloved bayou people, supply 30 percent of the domestic oil and natural gas for the rest of this nation. My communities, my beloved bayou people, supply 30 percent of the domestic seafood on your plates. My communities, my beloved bayou people, operate 10 of the 14 major seaports that serve this nation and the world beyond. My communities, my beloved bayou people, work hard every single day to make this nation what it is. They are dedicated to this country. Why is it that their country is NOT dedicated to them?

I just don’t understand. Could someone out there please explain it to me? Am I just wasting my time? Am I sacrificing that well paying corporate job waiting out in middle America for me to try to save a place that the US government has simply written off? Am I just a fool to think that my friends’ children and grandchildren and great grandchildren can live in and toil in and care for this place that I so love? Yes, I do understand that it’s a “complicated” issue. But is it really? Is it really so complicated that we can’t get those handful of people who said they wanted to be in charge of our well being to sit down and figure it out if we just put our minds to it?

I mean really, Mr. President, sit in the marsh with me, cast a line with me, meet the people I call friends, and tell me to my face that this place and this way of life is not worth saving. Because every day that we as Americans sit by and do not make saving this American treasure a national priority is a day that we pound another nail in the coffin on a place and a people and a culture that is of vital importance to the health and prosperity of the place that I used to be proud to call the United States of America. Please make me proud once again. Please renew my faith. Please give me the audacity to hope for change and a better tomorrow. Please tell me that yes we can save my home so that future generations can call it home.

So I just realized my intention when I started this post was really just to share a few photographs of mullet flying through the air in all their majesty…but maybe we’ll just have to save that for another day my friends cause it’s my birthday and I’m grabbing my new fishing pole to see if I can rustle up some fish for dinner and hope that I don’t accidentally get shot by the folks trying to rustle up some duck for dinner. Thank you to all of my friends and buddies who make restoration and protection a priority in their lives and work tirelessly to make it a priority in the lives of others.