There is a long tradition of secessionist movements in America, a country itself formed through breakaway. Though we often associate secession with the Southern states that confederated against the Union during the Civil War, folks all over the country have been talking about getting out ever since they got in. Texas was once a free country (it seceded from Mexico rather than the United States), eight counties of western North Carolina existed briefly as the State of Franklin, Maine was born when it seceded from Massachusetts, and both Kentucky and West Virginia were formed through secession from Virginia. There have been a slew of fifty-first state proposals, from folks in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula aspiring to become a state modestly named “Superior” to Long Islanders whose inherent sense of superiority motivated them to try to avoid slumming with the rest of New York. Northern California began trying to declare itself free of southern California even before the establishment of Rough and Ready and, in fact, has never stopped trying. A number of entire states—the usual suspects, including Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, and California—have attempted to remove themselves from the country. The citizens of countless cities and counties have also followed Rough and Ready in attempting to sever themselves from the United States. Following the outcome of all recent presidential elections, secession petitions have been filed from nearly every state in the nation.
Perhaps most interesting are regionalist and bioregionalist secession movements, which have been strongest in the West. In 1849, the same year Rough and Ready was founded, the Mormon church established the independent state of Deseret, which occupied most of the Great Basin. Communities around Yreka, California, have tried to leave the Union to form the State of Jefferson, an ongoing effort since 1941, when some independent-minded folks declared they would attempt to secede from the United States “every Thursday until further notice.” In the Pacific Northwest, advocates are attempting to form the bioregional state of Cascadia, which would comprise parts of a number of US states and even British Columbia. Some Lakota people in Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, and the Dakotas have created the Republic of Lakota to emphasize that they never chose to join the nation in the first place.
Crazy as they might sound, attempts to live within a larger political structure while somehow escaping its constraints make a kind of sense. Conceptually, secession speaks to our urge to declare ourselves independent from systems we find inefficient, unjust, or constraining, though we tend to look right past the privileges and utility of social confederation. We are all for decent roads and also against the taxes necessary to maintain them. I think it is human nature to form compacts and then rebel against their power over us. The urge to withdraw from most everything is intense out here in Silver Hills, where those of us who survive the fires, earthquakes, aridity, wind, snow, and rattlers have implicitly declared a fairly extreme form of independence simply by choosing to dwell here.
Secession means not only “formal withdrawal from an organization” but also “withdrawal into privacy or solitude.” In this latter sense, I am a secessionist of the first order. In fact, I wonder if I should follow the inspiration of my neighbors in nearby Rough and Ready and formally declare the absolute independence of our place here in Silver Hills. I already feel myself to be more a citizen of the western Great Basin than of Washoe County, and I am more a desert rat than a Nevadan. What if I could succeed in seceding from this county and state and instead establish the 49.1-acre Great Republic of Ranting Hill?
Some things would change straightaway. No one who roots for the Dodgers is allowed into the kingdom. The tribute required when entering the Republic of Ranting Hill is a box of IPA, payable down at our green farm gate. This, by the way, is the full extent of my immigration policy. No light beer is permitted to cross the border without imposition of a steep import tariff: a pint of porter is owed for every three light beers transported (unless they are also misspelled “lite,” in which case the tariff escalates to two pints). People who whine on hikes or arrive late for fishing trips do not receive a return invitation. Anyone abiding in the Republic will be required, at some point during their residency, to own a donkey that wears a straw hat. People who describe the desert using the pejoratives “empty” or “barren” automatically receive an official declaration of imbecility, while those who support the disposal of nuclear waste in the Great Basin will face extradition to Idaho. I have also declared an immediate end to sentimental pining for greenness, and anyone who can’t tell you their elevation and name a half dozen desert wildflowers or birds will be required to perform community service in the form of weed-whacking. Drunken plinkers and illegal off-roaders are barred from the kingdom but will be subjected to witty heckling from across the frontage border fence—which has a high-strung, barbless bottom strand, to allow pronghorn to pass in peace. I have also declared a moratorium on the discussion of trivialities such as religion, politics, and economics, but that’s just common sense.
My most significant act as the benevolent dictator of the Great Republic of Ranting Hill has been to appoint Hannah and Caroline to my cabinet, a leadership move made after observing that children tend to be more sensible than adults. So now the Rules of the Republic also include no bullying, cutting in line on the monkey bars, or making fun of your sister’s glasses. Bed making is now optional in the Republic, and, until further notice, healthy breakfasts have been replaced by an endless supply of Froot Loops. Mom will serve as vice president and is charged with attending the state funerals of goldfish. All employees of the Republic have, as part of their compensation package, sparkly shoes and one free Popsicle per day. The official motto of the kingdom is “Girls Rule, Boys Drool,” though my cabinet will need to reconcile this with the fact that our national anthem is a song by a boy band—though at least the band has a fitting name: One Republic.
Ultimately, what matters most about the Great Republic of Ranting Hill is not the specific rules that govern our citizenry but the spirit of absolute independence in which we operate. This radical autonomy is pure fantasy, since even the road that takes us from Silver Hills to town is kept up by the state of Nevada and leads to a highway maintained by the feds. But out here in the Great Republic, which is defined only by big wind, scorching heat, and alpenglow on distant peaks, the concepts of state and nation seem mere abstractions. Maybe there is a way to split the difference: we will declare our absolute independence but also celebrate July 4. I hereby decree that everybody gets booze. Even foreigners.
THE OTHER DAY, while rummaging through a stack of unsorted papers, I came across a card that was mailed to me about this time last year. Noting by the return address that it was sent by our veterinarian, I surmised that it would be a standard-issue expression of regret for the loss of our old dog, Darcy, who we had paid good money to have the vet put down a few days before the card arrived. Reasoning that I might as well have a look before tossing it into the recycling bin, I opened and read the card. It contained a stock expression of sympathy for “Darcy” (unnecessary quotation marks get quite a “workout” in American “English”). “You made a caring decision,” read the message, which was nestled in a field of delicate little paw prints.
Well, OK, I thought. This is more sympathy than most folks get when they lose an uncle, and although the card misused quotation marks and did not contain a discount coupon, the sentiment was compassionate. But included within the card was a smaller card containing the text of a poem that I had seen on display in the special room within the vet’s office where customers must wait with their soon-to-be-euthanized companions. A truly atrocious poem of uncertain provenance, “Rainbow Bridge” is six stanzas of mawkish reassurance not only that our dead dog will go to heaven but also that we will be reunited with her there. This struck me as an ambitious claim, especially compared to “you made a caring decision,” which seemed reassuring without presuming too much about the afterlife.
According to “Rainbow Bridge,” dead dogs end up in a grassy meadow that functions as a timeless purgatory between heave
n and earth, where they hang out in a roving pack of fellow mutts, until that magical day when they cross over said bridge into an interspecies heaven where they experience a blissful moment of reunion with their human pal. A single stanza of this literary gem will suffice:
For just at that instant, their eyes have met;
Together again, both person and pet.
So they run to each other, these friends from long past,
The time of their parting is over at last.
Even setting aside the deplorable quality of this ditty, which made me wonder if I should ask the vet to administer the pentobarbital to me instead of to Darcy, there are a number of problems here. First, the poem presumes not only that readers are onboard with the concept of heaven, but also that they want a pack of dogs around when they get there. The poem does not specify whether there are fleas, ticks, or canine flatulence in heaven or whether, in the suburban parts of heaven, you are expected to pick up your angel dog’s feces with a plastic bag.
Even if you do subscribe to the idea of heaven, and even if you do not mind a bunch of yelping dogs joining you there, consider some other problems with the “Rainbow Bridge” account of immortality. If this is really heaven, how do we know that all pet owners will make it through the pearly gates? Judging by my Silver Hillbilly neighbors, I would be surprised if half of us are admitted into the land of fish fries and harp recitals. We are more likely to end up in a place as hot as the desert—but one with more whiskey, which we might prefer in any case. And what of the dogs themselves? Assuming that the canine Saint Peter (or is it Saint Bernard?) has any standards at all, you need to figure that most of these shoe-eating, garden-destroying butt-sniffers are more likely to be reunited with their masters in the underworld.
I am also appalled that this poem is so patently illogical. Why relegate dogs to the timeless verdant meadows first? How about just sticking the nonheaven end of the rainbow bridge into the vet’s office and expediting the process of doggie salvation? Then there is the troubling point that, while this card is intended to reassure me, it presupposes that I am consoled by the contemplation of my own mortality. Sure, I would like to be with Darcy again, but when it comes to reuniting with the dead, whether human or canine, my goal is to put it off as long as possible. Finally, the card from my vet indicates imprecisely that this poem is “inspired by a Norse legend.” This is an indirect reference to the Bifröst Bridge, which, in Norse mythology, is a burning rainbow that links this world, called Midgard, to Asgard, the realm of the gods. But the thirteenth-century Icelandic Eddas clearly foretell the collapse of this bridge, which, in any case, is perpetually aflame and spans a river of boiling water—an apocalyptic vision of the afterlife that is a far cry from the blithe reassurances of the insipid “Rainbow Bridge.”
But here is the problem with making fun of this crappy poem: it hurts like hell to lose your dog. As I waited with Darcy for the vet to come into the room to dispatch her, I was as choked up as I have ever been. Researchers who study emotional attachment and separation have found that the bonds we have with our pets are often comparable to those we have with fellow humans. To make matters worse, we are often confused about how to reckon the loss of a pet, because in the case of these nonhuman loved ones, our culture has no accepted ritual of parting—unless you are willing to count reading “Rainbow Bridge” through streaming tears in a veterinarian’s office. The nerds who study this stuff have coined the term “disenfranchised grief” to refer to a form of very real sadness that we nevertheless are not quite sure we are allowed to feel. As one grief geek observed, “socially sanctioned mourning procedures, such as funerals, do not occur following the death of a pet, even though research shows that it is critical to the healing process.”
We named Darcy for the song “Darcy Farrow,” which features references to western Nevada’s Walker River and Carson Valley, and includes these words in its final stanza: “They sing of Darcy Farrow where the Truckee runs through, / They sing of her beauty in Virginia City too.” She was a wonderful dog, a true member of our family who was affectionate and gentle with our young daughters but also tireless in the field with me. I have done the redneck math: Darcy and I walked more than 10,000 miles together through these remote desert canyons, playas, and mountains. It is impossible to share that much time with a dog—that many memorable experiences of this astonishing land—and not become bonded in a deeply meaningful way. Several years ago, Darcy was pack hunted by a band of coyotes and was sliced to ribbons before making a narrow escape. When she came limping home, her fur matted and blood-soaked, I thought she was a goner. But the vet shaved her down and stitched her up, and though she looked like a canine Frankenstein for several months, she recovered fully and lived to walk another few thousand miles with me.
When it came time to say good-bye, it did no damned good to tell myself that Darcy is “just a dog.” As a confirmed desert rat, I knew that I should take my dog, gun, and shovel out into the sage and take care of this myself. But when that inevitable day arrived, I could not do it, and that is how I became a reader of “Rainbow Bridge.” That is also how I came into possession of a small cedar box containing the ashes of a dog, which were produced at additional expense when, in an already excruciating moment, I learned that Darcy’s body would be disposed of as “clinical waste.” What difference should it make what becomes of a dead dog, however much beloved in life? I still do not know the answer to this question, but in that moment it was an easy call to trade money for the assurance that my 10,000-mile trail companion would not leave this world in a dumpster.
The morning after my visit to the vet, sleepy-eyed little Caroline said, “Dad, I had the most awesomest dream last night. I dreamed that right before they burned Darcy, her heart started beating, and she came back and lived with us, and I was able to pet her, and her fur was so soft. And then I woke up, and it was all a dream, and I’m really sad now.”
Summer is coming to an end. The unusual desert rainstorm that has blasted us for two days has ended, and the sky is clearing now. The wildfire up in the hills to the south has finally been extinguished, and the Washoe Zephyr has at last ceased howling. I am taking the little cedar box, a wooden-handled shovel, and an ice-cold IPA, and I am hiking up onto a nearby hillside that is graced by a pair of old junipers. Between them, I will dig a small hole in this sandy soil before raising a toast to Darcy and our shared trail. Then I will kneel down among the sage and plant my dog.
As a final gesture, I will stand at attention and read aloud the terribly sappy “Rainbow Bridge.” Although it will be impossible for me not to laugh, it is also certain that I will weep, because both are so necessary. If ceremonies of mourning are essential to grieving, and if our culture lacks rituals of parting from nonhuman friends, then we will just have to act like the resourceful, imaginative people we are and invent one of our own. My newly developed ritual will be inadequate, but it is a memorial gesture that must pass for reunion here in this remote western desert, which is our only earth and also our only heaven.
EDWARD ABBEY began Desert Solitaire with these words: “This is the most beautiful place on earth. There are many such places.” My home lake here in Silver Hills is the most gorgeous place on the planet, in just the way Cactus Ed intended. It is nestled in a gently sloping basin surrounded by granitic hills that are dotted with bitterbrush and big sage. In the spring, balsamroot and lupine cover the upland slopes in a drapery of bright yellow and purple, while the pink flush of desert peach ignites the rocky draws. In autumn, golden domes of rabbitbrush appear everywhere. Green fingers of ephedra, which emerge from a blanket of snow in winter, are grazed by pronghorn and mule deer. My home lake is also a jewel on the necklace of the Pacific inland flyway, and is home to at least eighty species of birds. All year round we see golden eagles here, and harriers, red tails, kestrels, and ravens, great horned owls, western kingbirds, mountain bluebirds, and horned larks. So perfectly lovely is this place that when it came time to marry, I decided to hike E
ryn to the top of the nearby hills. There, on a crisp fall day just like this one, we rested on granite boulders, gazed out across the stunning expanse of the lake, and decided to spend our lives together. In this place, as in no other, there is a stark clarity of light, a rippling play of shadow, a catharsis of wind that makes you want to begin your life anew. There is one more thing I should mention about my home lake: it contains no water.
I realize that some people are so shamefully effete that they might expect a lake to have water. Some folks may even think they deserve to have water in a lake—they are spoiled enough to feel entitled to it. It would not surprise me if there are even people who would argue that a big, empty basin of land without a drop of water in it should not be called a lake. I suspect these are the same folks who drive across the desert without so much as slowing down and report back that there’s “nothing” there. Well, that same nothing fills my home lake, and those of us who live here do not see our lake as being empty of water. We see it as being full of light and wind. Full of coyotes and rattlers. Full of the kind of space that only the high desert can hold—space that is crowded out of other landscapes by irritating obstructions, like trees and water. Even if there are no trees blocking your view, how can you really see a lake if the damned thing is all filled up with water?
Although my home lake is what is called a dry lake or alkali flat, such lakes exist around the globe and are graced with a variety of lyrical names: kavir in Iran, takyr in central Asia, abkha in much of the Arabic world, pan in South Africa, and salar in most of South America. The term most widely used in Mexico and in the Intermountain West is playa lake. To scientists, this is an endorheic lake, which is a hydrowonky way of saying that it exists in a closed basin in which water flows in but never flows out. Moisture arriving here by any means will either evaporate or be absorbed into the ground. In this kind of internal drainage system, the concept of “downstream” simply does not apply. This special place is where water comes to die, and to be reborn.
Rants from the Hill Page 9
