The town of Aspen is founded on a gentle pitch that leans ever so slightly from north to south, from Little Nell to the Music Tent. As the Earth moves toward the March Equinox, the melting snow moves northward from Aspen Mountain toward the Roaring Fork River. It is imperceptible to most unless you are curious and/or an avid 7-year-old “toothpick” racer.
Every spring under a warming sun, Willard Clapper and I would build the perfect water craft, a concoction of toothpicks and styrofoam cups that were shallow enough to skate over the hazards of unpaved streets, avoid the occasional car, and take us on a journey to see our world in detail. The fastest currents ran down in front of Kalmes’ Clothing Store, past the Madalone gas station. Willard was a Madalone, so we always stopped to say hi, fix our boats, and then continue. To feel the sun climb north onto our perfect world, to follow the current of the winter’s snowfall through the streets in Aspen on its first leg of the journey to the sea, was magical.
I am a geography teacher, and the task of geography is to examine “landscapes” to see geography as a shaping force, to observe the character of our relationship to our “home,” the earth. Humans shape and are shaped by their landscapes. Landscapes tell the truth; our “splits” (multiple allegiances) and our moral frailties are made clear.
Communities from which nature has been abused or removed lose a most critical awareness: that the fate of humanity and nature are inseparable, that the biological and spiritual fate of those communities is one and the same. At the root of our spiritual and ethical collapse in the West is our addiction to material wealth, which eclipses our devotion to each other, to the natural world, and to place. Ultimately, our homes, imbued with our spirit, reveal who we are and whether our lives are in a healthy relationship with all parts of the planet.
If we’re lucky, we meet friends early on who are accomplices in exploring our home. I was lucky and met Willard on my second day in Aspen, in Mrs. Willie’s second grade class. We were perhaps unlikely best friends: a molybdenum miner’s son born in Leadville, and a son of a B-24 pilot and author from Santa Barbara. But toothpick racing was followed by a car wash in sixth grade (not a banner enterprise, but two mothers had spotless cars), 40-plus years of teaching, taking students down rivers, up mountains, skiing to huts, trips to Selma, to Washington — all the while trying to honor what is inherently sacred in people, our world, our place, and to care for it, with an allegiance and intimacy that knowing one’s home engenders.
Willard was sharply aware of the disparity of opportunity and power in the Roaring Fork Valley. Having started Tomorrow’s Voices with me, he would be very proud of student Karen Machuca Garcia’s thoughts about her childhood home, El Jebel — geographically very close to our Aspen home, and worlds apart. Garcia speaks eloquently about how this landscape exposes both the resilience of the people and the politics and classism of the area.
“Wikipedia describes it as a small mountain town, or a ‘bedroom community,’ but to me, it was home. A home built not just from the trailers that lined my neighborhood of James Circle, but from the people who lived in them — the immigrants, the workers, and the families that made up the core of our community. For me, El Jebel will always be more than just a small mountain town; it’s a testament to resilience. A place where Latin American immigrants have built a community, where they have raised children and have worked tirelessly to sustain the economy of Aspen. Every day, seven days a week, I see these workers make the commute to Aspen, a city that relies on their labor yet refuses to make space for them. It’s ironic that the same people who clean the hotels, construct the buildings, and maintain the luxury homes of Aspen cannot afford to live anywhere near it. I ask myself frequently, who gets to belong in these towns? Who has the right to call them home?”
“Who has the right to call them home?” is such a powerful sentiment, suggesting that “home” is a privilege. Yet, whether privilege or right, “home” is, as Barbara Kingsolver says, “place, geography, and psyche; it’s a matter of survival and safety, a condition of attachment and self-definition.”
Honoring our “home,” means we need to reflect on what we individually bring to the collective, and resist the temptation of excessive wealth to protect our relationships, as they are the reason we will bring our best. This will ask for more courage than we think we have, often more than we can generate alone. Luckily, we don’t need to. Some of the biggest ventures in my life, the things that shaped me and of which I am most proud, were taken with Willard. It was our collective courage that carried us aloft, gave us the joy of teaching, and gave our souls a sense of purpose and sustenance.
Desmond Tutu spoke to the power of collective courage, saying, “I am because you are. I am a person through other people.”
We rise for and with each other, which is the great genius and gift of community. My humanity is tied to yours, and we will rise together. So on this Fourth of July, let reverence for our shared humanity carry us aloft.
“Seeking Haystacks” is a year old. My original intention was to begin a conversation about our beautiful valley — who we collectively have been, are, and might become — and share my students’ perceptions about our home, character, ethics, justice, and what it takes to bring our best selves. Huge thanks to every student who gave us such profound offerings.