A beautiful responsibility

‘A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life.’

—Mary Oliver,

‘The Leaf and the Cloud’

We are driving to the veterinarian’s office early one morning to deliver Bu for surgery. He’s got some questionable masses and it’s our responsibility to seek the care he needs.

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Washington Square Park

A YOUNG MAN (23) sits along the Washington Square Park fountain. He holds a Polaroid photo of a girl and stares at it longingly. He is noticeably distressed. It’s cold and his breath is heavy and visible. He stands up and holds his arms straight out from his sides and steps onto the edge of the fountain, balancing himself like a tightrope walker.

The sun has recently set in the distance and the sky is beautiful.

He slips, but catches himself before he falls. He checks his watch and squints as he scans the faces of the passers by. THREE FRIENDS stand impatiently waiting in the distance. One calls out to the young man in a think Irish accent.

“Oy! She’s not coming.”

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Civilization

By SKIP MENDLER

I’ve come to realize that I’ve been operating under a false assumption. All these years, I have been imagining that I had been born into a civilized time.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. You may remember that at the end of the ‘80s, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the repressive regimes of eastern Europe, some conservative wag had the temerity to come out with a book entitled “The End of History”—as in, that’s it, capitalism has triumphed, there’s nothing else to be decided. Subsequent events, of course, have proved him wrong on that score.

End of history? Heck, we’re not even out of the Dark Ages yet.

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A basin-wide collaboration

By CAROL R. COLLIER, Executive Director, Delaware River Basin Commission

The Upper Delaware region is critical to the whole Delaware River system because it holds the environmentally sensitive and hydrologically important headwaters. I believe that by being proactive, we can protect this resource and enhance our quality of life throughout the basin.

In doing so, we must respect a few basic truths which, borrowing from Thomas Jefferson, water managers hold to be self evident:

• Water does not respect political boundaries.

• What happens on the land affects the river.

• There is not enough water in the Delaware River Basin to support all uses during a drought of record.

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