II
We find speaking of the Anthropocene, even speaking in the Anthropocene, difficult. It is, perhaps, best imagined as an epoch of loss – of species, places and people – for which we are seeking a language of grief and, even harder to find, a language of hope.
– Robert Macfarlane,Underland: A Deep Time Journey
But the only people who hear the saints and philosophers are those who keep on listening.
– Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky,Learning to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis
The second date written on the bottom of the dining-room table is 1988, when the table was rebuilt. This date is written in my father’s handwriting. In that year, while we were living in Vancouver, he disassembled and reconstructed the table. He also made two leaves as inserts to expand it. These leaves were – and are – a near match to the original wood, though they have always left a very slight gap when they are put in. The dowel ends slot just a little bit unevenly into holes long-since drilled into the tabletop. I spent many an afternoon oiling the wood surface, especially once my parents gave the table to us for our growing household. They shipped it from Calgary all the way to Halifax, where we were living after my studies. It occupied pride of place alongside the wooden pressback chairs that my parents first acquired in Ontario in the 1970s. And then, only a few months later, we found ourselves moving back to Calgary and, as a result, shipped the table right back to the city from which it had come.
One summertime, not long ago, I was driving my rusting, aging Mazda west on Calgary’s 17th Avenue. Seventeenth Avenue has felt down on its luck of late, even before the pandemic. To me, though, it remains a central and in many ways well-heeled strip of the city. It houses a number of trendy restaurants, bars, nightclubs and shops. Some are still open, while other empty storefronts wait for the times to improve. On this particular summer day, it was full of life. It was a sunny afternoon and people came out of the woodwork to stroll the streets, people-watch and catch the warm sunshine. This was during the last oil boom. I ended up driving behind a Lamborghini. I don’t recall its colour, nor its specific model, but I could peer into the wee rear window and see a youngish man behind the wheel. I have never seen anyone who wasn’t a dude driving a Lamborghini. For the sake of what follows, let’s say that the Lamborghini was blue. We drove along. The man was driving slowly, showing off his symbol of wealth and status. People looked at his shiny car. Then they looked past my clunky yet effective ride. We pulled up to a light. Just before the light changed to green, a car turned into our flow of traffic. It was another Lamborghini. Let’s say that this one was yellow, but otherwise the same in all significant respects. It was driven by another youngish man. Presumably he had also been enriched by the boom. Presumably he was also unencumbered by many responsibilities. Calgary was like this during the boom years, and it was particularly evident in the summertime. Expensive cars came out to enjoy the warmth, not unlike mosquitoes, wasps and other biting and stinging insects. We were now in a procession: yellow Lamborghini, blue Lamborghini and me in my Mazda. People looked at the Lambos. I nodded to an onlooker. I
