Saturday, April 19, 2008

What You Can See

Well, today I'm thinking a lot about what you can't see.

I have, in small pieces, for the past two days been trying to track down information about oil in pesticides. I can't really find anything that makes any sense or that seems credible. I saw some abstracts I would like to read -- and maybe I should go to the library. I can't decide if it's comforting or annoying to know that there are actually limitations to the internet...

So... I'm still working on it. In the meantime I've been a little less ambitious because that's where my time has been going. What you can't see...

My mother used to live on Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. She used to live a lot of places... But this one was my favorite. The sand is white and the water is green and clear and warm.

Usually, when we see pictures of an oil spill, it is in the Atlantic or the Pacific ocean -- choppy and dark and a slightly darker patch that could also vaguely be a cloud or needs to be outlined in red to really see at all.

Last week there was an oil spill in Jamaica. In the photo, a huge mass of thick black hangs in a perfectly clear sea. Clear water, light sand -- somehow this shows me something.

There is so much in life we can't see -- it's there, moving toward and encompassing and spreading. Sometimes we just have to see it.

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photo on Radio Jamaica.com

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