How We Live

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Don’t Just Kill the Lawn When You Can Create Habitat

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Monarch butterfly

Some Californians seem shocked to hear the water people finally say: “Hey folks, rethink that yard! We don’t have enough water for lush lawns.” Why the surprise? California is the only state in the union where rain doesn’t typically come in summer, which (aside from the gold rush) is why they call it the Golden State. Describing the state’s crispy hillsides as “golden” is much more poetic than burned-out brown. California’s Mediterranean climate zones are perfect places to grow many exotics—almonds, pistachios, olives, citrus fruit, figs, apricots, wine grapes, you name it. Continue Reading →

Filed under: All Stories, How We Live, Wildlife

The Road Not Taken

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The Road Not Taken

You’ve gassed her up, you’re behind the wheel, with your arm around your sweetheart in your Oldsmobile . . . —Tom Waits

If you were in the business of selling a popular dream—say, freedom, status, and mobility—and you began to notice your customers’ dreams shifting elusively, as dreams do, into something quite different from your product, what would you do? For automakers, the answer seems to be wake up, quickly, and smell the soy latte.  (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: All Stories, How We Live

What Color is Your Organization?

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What Color is Your Organization

Not every idea threatens change to the status quo, but those that do are met with a fairly predictable response: attention, which can diverge into derision or fascination; resistance; and sometimes, acceptance. I just finished reading a book that’s bound to trigger all three, with plenty of fireworks along the way. Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organizations (Nelson Parker, 2014) has the attention-grabbing subtitle, “A guide to creating organizations inspired by the next stage of human consciousness.” Luckily for me, by the time I paid sufficient attention to that, I’d already been hooked by the book’s premise. Otherwise, I’d probably have veered off along the derision path and missed the “exhilarating and deeply hopeful” reaction the book has inspired during its few months of existence. It really is a guide, and “reinventing” is putting it mildly. Continue Reading →

Filed under: All Stories, How We Live, Book Reviews

The Ecology of Home

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Ecology of Home

This part of California is home to me. I can’t claim generations of northern California kinship as my friend JoEllen Hall can. Jo descends from the pioneering Stover cattle ranching clan. Her family still wintered horses in upper Bidwell Park (good grazing) not all that long ago. Her mother was a talented trick rider, too, one of the first Little Nells ever chosen to reign over Chico State’s mythic Pioneer Days festivities. Continue Reading →

Filed under: All Stories, How We Live

Birds of a Feather, and Not

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parakeets

Events make sense only in context. Sometimes the term context is used by naturalists to mean the environment or “field” in which a creature makes its living naturally. A caged parrot is out of context, then, and unable to teach us much about being a parrot. A lion or gorilla in a zoo may exhibit some genetically encoded behavior and physiology, but mostly they teach us how caged animals interact with each other, their keepers, and the observing public. Understanding context can be challenging.  (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: All Stories, How We Live, Birds, Wildlife

Compassion Across Species

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Bird

At seven in the morning hundreds of blackbirds and several dozen crows forage on the grass in the field I walk and jog around for exercise. I’ve gotten to know their ways, a bit. Glossy black male Brewer’s blackbirds hop, cock their tails up, or send them straight back. Some drop their wings as in courting displays although nesting season is well past. The brownish females, dark-eyed, fluff up as round as English robins; at other times they affect a sleeker look. Continue Reading →

Filed under: All Stories, How We Live, Birds, Wildlife

The Man with the Compound Eyes

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beach and trash

British and American people may jokingly refer to the Atlantic Ocean as “the pond,” but I’ve yet to hear American or Asian people make a similar joke about the Pacific. In fact, given the cultural differences between the United States and the Asian countries bordering the Pacific, it had not occurred to me that there was any such unity. Ming-Yi Wu’s novel, The Man with the Compound Eyes (translated by Darryl Sterk), changed this perspective for me. Set mainly in Taiwan, Wu’s story features a mix of cultures, including Han Chinese, European, indigenous Taiwanese and Pacific Islander. Ming drew my attention to the continuity of island cultures around the Pacific, and demolished my preconceptions of Taiwan. Continue Reading →

Filed under: All Stories, How We Live, Book Reviews

The Stuff of Life

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The Stuff of Life

During the Depression, when casinos were legal in Mexico, my grandfather worked as a bookkeeper and cashier at a club in Mexicali. My grandparents lived across the border in Calexico. They were embarrassed that Grandpa was working at a casino, but it was a job. Although recreation was limited in Calexico, they found a surprising amount of entertainment in wandering the desert and examining mineral specimens. It was a hobby that required nothing more than a guidebook. Continue Reading →

Filed under: All Stories, How We Live, Book Reviews