What felt like the culmination of my summer happened this week, in early Fall.  On October 8th, I went to see Sturgill Simpson in concert in Brooklyn, NY.  I fell in love with his album “A Sailors Guide to Earth” in Peru.  During the days leading up to the trip to the Tambopata Center for Conservation, Science and Education on what seemed like countless flights and buses the album became part of the new connections being made in my brain as I traveled through this new place.  Like the grooves in a record, I could put on a track now and be transported back there.

My husband and I purchased tickets and made dinner reservations with some friends before the show.  As I was getting ready for dinner, I asked myself what I would tell them about Peru if they asked.  I hadn’t seen them since before my trip and since I still have trouble framing the entire experience myself, I wasn’t sure how I would answer the question “How was Peru?”.  What do you say to friends at dinner about Peru?  I didn’t want to gloss over the bad stuff and “It was amazing” didn’t seem sufficient even though it was amazing.  “I learned a lot” seemed boring and  I didn’t want to seem like I was lecturing them.

Sharing the message of conservation is difficult for so many reasons.  Sometimes people don’t believe in climate change, or they don’t want to talk about something “depressing.”  No one wants to be the debby downer at a dinner party lecturing the other guests on their wicked ways.

In the end, when the question about Peru came up, it was in the context of what places I had been.  I told them about the rainforest, and asked “have you heard about the gold mining problem there?”  No one had.  I hope that in sharing this small thing one person at a time I can be part of educating people about the impact human consumption is having on the rainforest and in all the other parts of the wild world that are worth saving.

In case you’re wondering here are a couple singles from Sturgill Simpson’s album “In Bloom a Nirvana cover and another song from his previous album “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” the lyrics “it’s turtles all the way down” reminds me of when we saw the turtles in Lago Sandoval.  Or when we saw the turtles it reminded me of those lyrics…