Living in a world in which most people are blind to natural beauty is so painful. What little beauty there is left so often gets destroyed, irrevocably, without a thought. After polite requests and rational explanations, I simply beg, Please don’t, but they just smile at me, with incomprehension, perhaps amused by my apparently baseless hysteria—and carry on, tearing me apart as they cut down all the trees in one of the few remaining untouched coves and park a dirty aluminum boat right in the middle of the now decimated, and ugly, shoreline, as they put up gaudy halogen lights lakeside ensuring I will never again be able to gaze at the glimmering moonlight on the dark water, as they park a bright yellow floating raft ruining yet another view of nothing but trees and water.
I want to write a victim impact statement, I want to make them see what they’ve done, I want them to appreciate the full extent of their obliviousness, their negligence, at the very least their lack of respect for something they cannot see that is, so clearly, of such great value to another. I don’t ‘get’ men’s love of cars, but I get that they do love them, deeply, and on that basis alone wouldn’t spray paint someone’s truck with pink polka dots. I don’t get women’s love of shoes, but I get that they do love them, and, so again, would not drag them through the dirt. But I swear I am sorely tempted.
(Even though that wouldn’t make my point because they could simply repair the truck and replace the shoes. Options not available to me.)
