Letter to the Editor, West Marin Citizen

I noticed at the National Park Service meeting the other night that the passion on the bridge issue came across almost as if the force of pure desire could solve this complicated problem.  When I walked home under the grand finale of a gorgeous sunset I wondered how hard it would be to push the pause button on all this passion and see what is happening instead of what we want to have happen.

For us humans, the gift of the wetlands project is a renewed natural environment, where we are invited to be spectators to the bird life, the tidal panorama and the comings and goings when water meets land. The value of a passive refuge from our revved up comings and goings may seem modest compared with the goals of alternative transportation with its attendant virtues, but it is a value nevertheless. 

I think it would help everyone to sink into a state of gratitude for the Giacomini Wetlands as it is evolving, to imagine how we can add it to our repertoire of natural resources here and let some time pass on the dilemmas of the bridge. It may be that we have to surrender to the fact of life of that the busy causeway of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard is our Bayshore Freeway—not a very nice place to walk or bike along, but there because of larger necessities.

In time, there may arise a fresh idea of how to get people across Lagunitas Creek that bypasses all the constraints we learned about. We used to walk up Black Mountain once a year. Maybe once a year we could just take over the trail and the road, recruit some rowboats to be ferryboats and slow the cars down by the pure presence of our numbers. Until then, it’s the white pelicans that have the spotlight.

 Summer 2008

Elizabeth Whitney, Point Reyes Station