June/July
2004
The Peace Garden
By Kim Antieau
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I was in elementary
school when I first defended the environment. Boys were breaking killdeer
eggs they had found in nests behind the school playground. I was this
tiny little thing, running after the boys with their egg-breaking sticks.
My first political awakening came in high school when we protested an
outdated dress code. A year later, I bought a POW bracelet with the
name of a soldier missing in Vietnam written on it. The bracelet itched,
but I kept wearing it until the itch turned into a rash that turned
into an open sore that turned into an infection. Then I took it off.
After college, I moved West. Our peace group in a small town in Oregon
worked on the periphery of the sanctuary movement and brought in a
speaker
from El Salvador who was seeking asylum in the U.S. I listened to his
stories of atrocities and wrote about him; at night I had nightmares.
A local minister who had been in a concentration camp in World War
II
wrote editorials about how awful our peace group was, saying we were
nothing but a bunch of peaceniks—as if that were the worst epithet
he could hurl at us.
I continued working on peace and environmental issues although I saw
no evidence that I effected any change. It was exhausting living amongst
people who did not cherish nature and did not want to work for peace
and justice for all people.
Then 9/11 happened. Despite protests by millions of people all around
the world, the U.S. government started a war with Iraq. Immigrants
were
arrested and held without charge and without benefit of lawyers; some
were deported. Stealthily and in plain sight, the administration began
eroding women’s reproductive rights. Throughout the country, the
right-wing has gotten over 300 laws passed restricting women’s
reproductive rights.
Recently, Karen Hughes, one of Bush’s advisors, linked those of
us who are pro-choice with the terrorists. In an interview with CNN,
Hughes said that since 9/11 people value life more, unlike the terrorists
who don’t value life, their own or lives of the unborn.
On April 25th, over a million people marched in Washington, DC in support
of women’s rights. We had our own march in Portland, where I live.
As we walked around town, mostly silent, I thought of an interview I
had recently seen with Democratic Congressman Barney Frank. He said
people in Washington, the people in power, don’t care about demonstrations.
He said you don’t see conservatives out demonstrating because
they know it’s useless. The problem with the left, Frank said,
is that they don’t vote. People will call him up and complain
about something and then tell him they don’t vote. He says, so
why should I listen to them?
I am tired. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this tired. I’m
tired of not succeeding. I’m tired of being surrounded by warriors
and hearing stories of people dying overseas in a useless war or dying
here from diseases caused by a stressed and polluted environment. I
don’t know what will work anymore. I don’t know what to
do.
Last year right after the war started, my landlord came in and butchered
the front part of a pine in our backyard. After my husband and I removed
all the junk from under the tree, a barren patch of ground remained.
I went to a garden place, bought a beautiful statue of Kuan Yin—a
goddess of Peace and Compassion—and put her under the tree. I
found flat stones around the yard and made two paths leading up to
her.
I planted hostas and primroses. I put some bleeding hearts right next
to the goddess. A hummingbird flew up to the bleeding hearts and stuck
her long beak inside one of the flowers. I had lived in this house
for
three years and had never seen a hummingbird here before. I stood very
still, watching this beautiful being and feeling honored to be in her
presence.
I planted wildflower seeds in the Kuan Yin Peace Garden, too. Poppies
made their way up through the acid and the needles, along with some
chocolate mint I planted despite warnings it would take over. I imagined
a takeover by chocolate mint. I could just see CNN reporting it, “The
Chocolate Mint terrorists have now made their way to downtown Portland.
People in the streets seem to be cheering them on.” Fox News:
“We are certain that the Bush administration is correct when
it reports a vast amount of WMDs are hidden within the Antieau Chocolate
Mint patch...”
The Kuan Yin Peace Garden was beautiful, but I soon forgot about it
as I entered another battle with a school across the street when they
wanted to spray pesticides. When I lost that fight, I was on to another
event to organize, another letter to write, another thing to do. People
continued to die in Iraq, nothing got any better.
Then we heard last week that the town where I live—to which I
moved to get away from the constant pesticide spraying in the rest of
the county and state—had decided to start using herbicides. I
shrugged, too exhausted and sad to do anything about it. My husband
made a few phone calls. Friends made a few calls. Something happened.
I don’t really know what. This morning, an official from the city
walked over to the library where my husband works to tell him they had
decided not to spray. The man said, “I never wanted to spray.
I’ll do it if I’m ordered to. But I’m glad we’re
not going to.”
I went out to the Peace Garden this morning. I removed some pine cones
and branches that had fallen into the garden. A beautiful coriander-colored
spider with long legs and a tiny body rode the cheek of Kuan Yin like
a living beauty mark. The hostas were coming up. Various wildflowers—white,
yellow, and blue—were in bloom, having survived the acid soil
to be resurrected this year. The bleeding hearts had not survived.
I will continue to try and figure out how best to do my work. But I
plan to be still, too. Perhaps I shall endeavor to be a beauty mark
on the cheek of the Peace Goddess. That will have to be enough for now.
Kim Antieau’s latest novel, Coyote Cowgirl,
is out in paperback (Tor Books). Read her weblog, Furious Spinner (www.furiousspinner.com).
This article was originally published as “Personal Voices: The
Beauty Mark” by Alternet.org on April 28, 2004. Reprinted with
permission.
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