Lots of Fears. Some Hopes, Too.

You want to know what I fear? I fear change. Change comes and goes and leaves things different than they once were. Some change is good, while some is malevolent. Change kills and creates. 

I fear the trees falling. I fear people panicking. I fear people running to us asking for help, for land, and we’re the nice people who say, yes, you can live here, but then the summers are warmer and the nights are colder. Then the hurricanes sweep the nation, including us, and more people outside of Vermont ask “can we stay here” and because we’re nice people we say yes, even  though our own state is in financial ruin. We try to regroup but the world is falling apart, I fear.

I fear that housing stops, and people are homeless and walk the streets hoping for a home. I fear trees tumbling to stop this crisis, though. I fear the animals crying, screaming, how could you do this to us? Vermonters, unable to respond, unsure ourselves on how this has happened. 

I fear streets filled with animals, looking for somewhere, anywhere to find refuge, to find a home. People get angry at them, saying they don’t belong here, saying that they should go back from where they came. 

Vermonters know, though, that the real problem was us, too kind for this world. Animals are hunted, carelessly slaughted by others who have no heart. If only we had said no, this place is free and wild and a community, already growing and thriving, trying to survive in this world we call home. 

Protests are set up, people screaming in anguish as trees cut from the ground. The sky is filled with smoke, dust clogging the sun-filled sky. Why, people wonder, what has the world come to for this to happen? People fret, and guilt prickles at Vermonters’ skin. What can we do to fix this? people ask themselves, but they know the answer is in the past. The ecosystems die, trees as scarce here as they are on the moon. People are still homeless, trying to find somewhere, anywhere to live, while Vermonters just wish things could have been different, wishing they could go back to normal as they were all those years ago. I fear the Vermonters’ fear, hoping for some good change, but knowing that it’ll never come. 

I have hope for the future. For things to stay the same – but change just a little. I hope for the housing crisis to stop. I hope for this young country, as a whole, to thrive, unlike it is now. I hope for climate change to end, though I know that isn’t just a hope. It’s an act. I hope for the land. I hope for the people. I hope for freedom. I hope for equity. I hope for a future I would love to grow up in.

Vermont in 2050 … So many ways time could twist. So many people, so many decisions, some made by persons, some made by the fate of the universe. There is no way of knowing how it’ll go. Will it get better? Will it get worse? Or will it stay the same? Maybe it’ll be a mix of the three of those. Who knows?

Hopes, dreams, fears. Seemingly significant feelings. But little do we know those feelings shape the world around us. They shape the future. Every little wish and want, the need and greed, it’s not for nothing. It’s for the future.