Insights to my magazine, and myself.
My brother and I peered through the windows,
waiting for our mother to come home. Finally, her car pulled into the driveway. We rushed to the front door. She came into the house. “I got arrested,” she said. We both cheered.
.
That morning my mother had gotten up at 5:00 to join We are Seneca Lake, an organization devoted to preventing a natural gas company from storing byproducts of fracked gas in the permeable salt caverns beneath Seneca Lake. Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake, the largest of the Finger Lakes, are connected through underwater cave systems and a canal, so to pollute Seneca Lake would be to pollute the entire region.
My grandmother and mother were each arrested once, at different protests. They were 2 of 400 arrests made that first year in 2014. (Much to my parents’ chagrin, I’m sure, I learned that some laws are meant to be broken.) The quintessential part of this movement — from my perspective — is that people from all walks of life are fighting peacefully for our shared livelihood. I adored coming to school in the morning knowing that my teachers had been up before sunrise, united for a common cause.
My environmental education had started years prior, in 2010,
when my parents began the first issue of their local green living magazine, Fresh Dirt Ithaca. The magazine highlighted local people trying to make a shift to healthier stewardship of the earth; they released four issues by 2014.
I loved having my childhood intertwined with the production of FreshDirt Ithaca. It was all over our house. I remember walking into my father’s study and finding myself surrounded by photographs, articles and magazine designs. On any given day, I’d come home to writers, photographers, web designers, etc.. – all discussing local people who were working towards a healthier environment in their daily lives. Even better, sometimes I’d come home to an interview and hear their stories for myself. Listening to these stories – and seeing the people who lived them – was inspirational for me. I was so proud of this community, and of my parents for making it so accessible.
As I grew older and more politically aware, I missed the immersive environmental discourse in Fresh Dirt Ithaca that was ever-present during my childhood. Social justice advocacy and education became my passion in the years following the last issue of Fresh Dirt Ithaca; I realized the interconnectedness of environmentalism and social justice as I learned more about each. At the end of my junior year, I decided to create my own edition of Fresh Dirt, with my publication including social justice.
I wanted to recreate the experience that had played such an enormous role in my life,
and share it with others. My magazine is more focused on social justice, and in a way, these articles mirror parts of my life. Changing Minds discusses my grandmother’s experience in the Alternatives to Violence Project, where she taught nonviolent communication to incarcerated participants. She was a ceaseless social justice activist; and one of my biggest inspirations. The Power of One – featuring Dominic Jocas – is about the beauty in helping others. I loved researching the Black Mambas, women in Africa, protecting their nature preserve from poachers, protecting animals and their own villages.
Finding stories about people—
musicians, teachers, shop owners, scientists, farmers, artists, homemakers, restaurateurs – and their unique initiatives brings me hope in a world that has felt a little dark in the last few years. Once, when my grandmother and my mother were talking about how bad the news was, my mother asked my grandmother how she dealt with it. My grandmother said, “You just have to remember that there are a lot of people doing good things around you, and encourage them, and celebrate them.”
That’s what I hope to do with my publication. I hope you enjoy it.