April 20, 2015 - 12:46
My initial reaction to Terry Tempest Williams’ collection of stories in An Unspoken Hunger was to reflect on how we have not only lost a connection to our world but also a profound connection within ourselves. I’ve never thought about these two losses in relation to one another. Since I’ve become interested in environmental studies, I’ve always thought about how humans remove themselves from the earth. We have lost a connection with the natural world by building up cities and staring at laptops. But I haven’t thought how this has contributed to a disconnect in ourselves. There is an unspoken hunger in how we go through life--this restless unfulfillment, a misplaced dissatisfaction. Maybe we are restless because we have lost that connection with each other and with the earth. Maybe this is why we migrate and travel. Maybe this is why we cheat and lie. Maybe we try to form connections and find meanings in all the wrong places. I have just been left with more questions than I started with after reading Williams’ An Unspoken Hunger. It also left me feeling “hungry”, hungry to try to connect with the beauty, temporality, and vibrancy of the natural world.
“Deserts are defined by their dryness, heat, and austerity of form...Where there is water, the desert is verdant. Hanging gardens on slickrock walls weep generously with columbines, monkey flowers and mertensia. A thunderstorm begins to drum. Lightning dances above the mesa. Clouds split. Surging rain scours canyons in a flash of flood. An hour later, there is a clearing. Potholes in the sandstone become basins to drink from. Creatures-coyotes, kit fox, rattlesnake, mule deer- drink freely, filling themselves from this temporary abundance”.