Comfortably Numb

“Hello, Is anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?….

This is not how I am. I have become comfortably numb. I have become comfortably numb.”

Acres upon acres of wild backcountry are being cleared at Gulf State Park. It’s not just the width of another trail they are clearing. It’s wide swaths of trees, underbrush, ground cover….gone. Little-by-little this jewel of a state park is being turned into a manicured, groomed city park that continues to push wildlife into smaller blocks of land.

 First it was condos. The building boom hit right after Hurricane Frederic in 1979. It’s good for the economy, they said. It will generate jobs, they said. No, we can’t turn the beach front into a national wildlife refuge, there’s too much money to be made, they said. And so we witnessed the taming of the shoreline. Concrete, glass and landscaping that demands hideous amounts of water to survive.

Now that the beaches are nearly full of monuments to human-demand-for-more, the governor of the State of Alabama is building a monument to himself on the state park beach. Drive by and see his legacy…the mountain of sand…the machinery….all hail one of the biggest crooks in the history of Alabama politics.

Off of Rosemary Dune Trail in the backcountry machines are busy in Gulf State Park. It’s not new trails that concern me, it’s the ridiculous amount of sacred land being cleared to make it appear more manicured? More city-park-like? There’s no reason for this kind of reckless behavior. None. And they are using restoration funds to do this?

I stopped to photograph the destruction and as soon as I unclipped from my pedals Sarah McLachian began singing, through my ear buds, the Prayer of Saint Francis….”Make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.”

It wasn’t just tears….it was sobs of grief. Where will the wild things go when humans bent on molding nature to their image and intention manicure it beyond recognition of what it once was?

And we sit by….and allow this destruction to continue. Pink Floyd nailed it….”We have become comfortably numb.”