第 9 章
Mothering as Revolutionary Connection
My daughter Noli has talked about becoming a botanist for three years, collecting plants, rocks, shells and creating a "Nature City." Her interest blossomed after attending farm camp, where she learned to identify plants and their uses. I've watched her develop self-possession and confidence as she's grown, and I'm trying to see her as her specific self rather than my fixed impressions of her.
Growing up in rural Pennsylvania with immigrant parents from the Philippines, I never went camping-"dirt floors were something they were actively trying to get away from." Though I played in the woods behind our house, I saw outdoor activities like hiking and camping as "rich white people activities" requiring expensive equipment.
When I met my husband, an avid outdoorsman with worn ski equipment and performance gear, I was suspicious of his lifestyle, reading his thin, white, athletic male body as privilege. My first hiking experience with him was miserable-rain-soaked glasses, no proper raincoat, and disappointment at not seeing the promised waterfall.
My perspective shifted when my sister-in-law easily started a campfire that I struggled with. When I expressed surprise at her skill, she explained, "I grew up camping. My family never had any money. All our vacations were camping vacations." I realized I had misunderstood outdoor recreation as exclusively white and privileged, overlooking how my own non-white family had financial privilege.
Over time, I formed a new relationship with nature. I learned to walk slowly, find my rhythm, and discovered pleasure in hiking-"it's just walking." Guided by Bonancio's wisdom "A tu paso" (at your own pace), I began to see the natural world as my birthright.
Though some people can live without a conscious relationship to nature while others can't imagine life without wilderness, most of us exist somewhere in-between. My four-year-old would happily stay indoors watching TV, yet outdoors she transforms-climbing, exploring, and inevitably asking, "Mama, it's okay if I get naked and in the water?" This elemental connection exists in all of us but becomes harder to access as adulthood pulls us away.
Reconnecting requires letting go of our human-centered perspective. Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic "changes the role of homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it"-the part we struggle with most. Jenny Odell suggests bioregionalism as a solution-learning to identify with place by observing and taking responsibility for local ecosystems.
Indigenous Filipinos attributed supernatural powers to nature, believing ancestors could be absorbed into these sources. They showed reverence for wind, water, and stones-cutting down an old tree was sacrilege, and failing to ask permission to pass an ant mound invited retribution. Even in language, this connection persists: while Tagalog absorbed Spanish words for objects and American corporate terms, native words endure for things that cannot be quantified-wind, rain, tree, soul, spirit.
When my daughter plays "sushi" with friends using flowers, leaves, and sticks, they intuitively reject capitalism's notion of scarcity. As botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests, we might consider the gift economy instead, which operates from abundance with gratitude as currency. While we can't immediately escape capitalism, we can create parallel gift economies-sharing food, childcare, trading skills. This caretaking labor reminds us that "the gifts of the natural world are inherently diverse, queer, adaptable, creative, and enough. And that means so are we."
I support Noli's botanical interests through walks with field guides, collecting specimens for her magnifying tools, and helping her navigate reference materials. Her passion is nurtured by our community-like our friend Rachel from the Parks Department who identified flowers on our walks, explaining how some grow in clusters called "umbels," and gifted Noli a plant identification sheet and later sent waterproof nature journals.
Though I don't know if Noli will become a botanist, I recognize she's developing a way of seeing and being in the world. Through her, I'm learning too-that Douglas fir cones have "mouse tails" peeking from their scales, and the legend of small creatures taking shelter in pine branches during a great forest fire.
Lucille Clifton's poem "Generations" reminds us that humans must be accountable to all living things, not just ourselves. She writes that if consequences were shared only between people "it would be different," but "this business of war" is "erasing those natural obedient generations."
To commit to witnessing, to showing up-whether mothering, fathering, parenting, leading or following-how is this anything but right? Being part of the humbling and heroic details that comprise a child's wondrous life is our duty of care. The growth I attend to now extends beyond my daughters-to tiny pinecones on neighborhood Sitka spruces, wolves returning to wilderness, marking my children's heights on our kitchen wall, tracking local orca populations, even the improving jump shot of a middle-aged dad practicing in the park. Love is acts of attention, and I love witnessing how everything around us moves, changes, evolves.
