This past spring, I discovered what it's like to parent my own parents. I was living overseas for a year and after much persuasion, my parents agreed to meet me in France for a week. It was the first family vacation in years and I was nervous. Suddenly it was my responsibility to read subway signs, order meals, and make sure all four Harmons were on a train together with validated tickets. When my dad had an emergency dental situation, I took him to a dentist, explained the situation to the receptionist, sat with him during the procedure to translate, and even managed to have it billed through my French medical insurance. Was this how my parents felt when I was growing up? The constant pressure to make sure everyone was taken care of was wearing. But my understanding of love was greater. I wanted them to have the best trip possible, and I was willing to do whatever was in my power to see that happen. The choices my parents made for me while growing up came from that same place of unconditional love.

Pretty soon, I realize what it is: another issue of Talking Leaves. There are worse monsters to be shadowed by. I'm not sure how I ended up in charge of this one--I think it was part of a group adoption plan, and some of the co-parents were soon adopted by other monsters. Luckily a number of other people do take an interest in it, so I am not entirely alone. But ultimately, this monster slows to a standstill if I am not leading it forward--and for monsters, a prolonged standstill is not an option. Sometimes it really, really needs to pee. If I don't take it out, it will pee all over my floor.

An Interview with David Orr by Chris Roth

 
For more than a decade, I have had the privilege of knowing David Orr, Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and author of the books Ecological Literacy, Earth in Mind, The Nature of Design, and The Last Refuge. The visionary force behind Oberlin's state-of-the-art ecologically-designed Environmental Studies Center (see "A Building Like a Tree,"TL 11.1), David is also a widely traveled speaker at conferences, and an influential contributor to such journals as Orion and Conservation Biology. He has been a leader in the reinvention of environmental education, advocating the incorporation of ecological consciousness into all areas of the curriculum and into all aspects of education itself, including the physical settings in which students learn. Increasingly in recent years, his interests have turned toward politics; The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror (reviewed in TL 14.3) is a treatise on the inseparability of ecology and politics, and a call to action to reclaim both from the hands of those with little apparent respect for either. Every winter, on my visit to my parents' home just a few blocks away from David and Elaine Orr's in Oberlin, our families get together for a meal and visit. This past winter, I also arranged a separate interview, which took place in David's family room late on the afternoon of January 4, 2005.

I watch my four-year-old daughter as she crouches naked up to her shoulders in the San Francisco River. Her head is dipped down as she drinks the cold water in quiet gulps while her hair falls in wet ropes around her face. She is effortlessly comfortable and completely aware, surrounded on all sides by the rich riparian green and raw red cliffs of the Gila Wildlands. A single vivid blue damselfly rests tentatively on one small brown shoulder. Rhiannon stops drinking and, with intent eyes and a huge grin, motionlessly watches her visitor. She waits until the damselfly takes flight on its own before she whirls in wild circles, growling and howling in wordless delight.

• front cover photo: Rhiannon by Kiva Rose
• Lost Valley Educational Center Programs 2005
• "Notes from the Editor: It Barks & Leaves, But Doesn't Bite" by Chris Roth
• Talking Back: Letters to the Editor
• "The Homing Instinct" by Mark Batcheler
• "Family Values: For the Birds"--An Interview with Dave Bontrager by Chris Roth
• "A Willow Grows Askant" by Steffanie Lott
• "Valuing Family" by Devon