The parallel world I think of now: National Forests and National Parks managed by foresters, firefighters, and loggers working on a plan originally made well over a century ago and constantly amended to fix the future. I think of Yellowstone and the ideas of America’s Park with its enormous lodge and thousand campsites. In Yellowstone, for the first several decades, forest fires were stomped out because they threatened to ruin the conservation the park held or the aesthetic at least. Rainbow trout were introduced to fuel recreation. And other improvements on nature were made. The idea, still seen in the mission—“for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations…”—of the Bureau of Land Management, was to create an escape into nature.
Conserve the past for the future.
The past predicts the future.
Historical myths look backwards.
The land is held as a piece of the past managed for present and future generations. Once inside the boundaries, you can touch the past in and around your campground. You can promise your kids they can do the same in forty years. Initially, fire didn’t exist in the park as if it didn’t exist in the past. Rainbow trout existed as if they always had. The predatory rainbows overtook the native fish, and the lodgepole pine grew too thick. Then in 1988 fires started, spurred by drought, that couldn’t be stopped. The thick pine trees, the most perfectly managed forest, fueled the largest fire since 1910. It couldn’t be stopped, contained, or controlled. As the fire burned those in charge realized this was natural—lodgepole actually need fire to release their seeds—and so they made a new policy (Live and Let Burn) and changed the past, present, and future. The image of a perfect park changed. The trout are still there and now fires are “let burn.”
How many people were let down when the park wasn’t their perfect? How may various parallels of the park exist. Joe could remember the park one way, hold that, and Billy another.
This brings me to garbage.
Everything in the woods: A forester walks around scaling trees and projecting their growth; a wildlife biologist sneaks through thinking of how to make more mature elk herds, better grouse breeding areas, and/or more controlled predator populations—“There, see those chickadees? We need more.”; A hiker walks through enjoying the natural beauty of it all—is it nature at this point?—maybe they leave a snack wrapper along the trail so someone else walks by and realizes: “Assholes. They’re what ruins the perfection of places like this.” I hate being reminded I’m not alone in the woods or even that I’m not the only person who’s ever been there. Have you ever been sixty miles from any highway, house, or human and found shit-stained toilet paper?
Garbage: an interruption, a footprint in the present to remind the future of the past. But where does the garbage, the interruptions, stop? Superficially, the garbage defaces nature, but below it is the trail, probably put in by the CCC in 1934. That also defaced nature—remove nature step by step. Along the trail is the manicured forest worked by Wild land-Urban-Interface crews. Don’t forget the units logged at various times between 1900 and present that are now managed by foresters checking to see if land practices worked effectively or if the leave-timber is ready for to be harvested. This spot exists on the map of his gps, connected to a larger map with units and timber sales drawn all over it. He knows this piece of nature as something different than you. The same is true for mining claims—mineral rights reach a mile into the ground. And property lines, grazing rights, hunting zones. A million footprints to remind you of the past. Deeper than all of it, maybe inside you, exists the romantic abstraction of nature. This is where you will find your sublime: this is where you will touch the supernatural. The Romantics climbed mountains they pretended had never been explored. Isn’t it all just garbage? Isn’t it all just getting away from what natural really is by creating dialectics that mislead and misguide? Support atavism. Support a return to nature. But who can handle that much violence?
Instead, go find the sublime in an empty box store. You can’t see down the aisles or through the forest of shelves. Listen to echo of nothing, imagining standing in a large, secluded canyon. Maybe predators are stalking you, waiting for their chance. Yell, “Hey!” and listen to the echo bounce back to you to prove emptiness. You’re alone, secluded, removed from reality like the Village of the Blind. Return to your side of the dialectic when you’ve had enough.
These are parallel worlds: fictional worlds we all make up, walk through, and ruin.
