Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

“Because unlike Descartes, I believe that language can lessen the distance between humans and the world of which we are a part; I believe that it can foster interspecies intimacy and, as a result, care.” 

In this passage, Rush describes the importance of using the names of all living beings. Due to our technology and arrogance, she suggests, humans no longer view themselves as part of nature. As such, we have become detached from the interconnectedness of the ecosystem. The death of the tupelos symbolizes not just the death of a tree but that the tidal marsh and all the organisms that rely on it (including humans) are changing. To Rush, learning and using the tupelos’ name is the start of justice, in that humans are one step closer to recognizing the harm we have caused the planet and hopefully figuring out how to rectify it.

“Sometimes the key arrives before the lock. Sometimes the password arrives before the impasse. Speak it and enter a world transformed by salt and blue. Say: tupelo.” 

This passage is a neat summation of the point Rush is trying to make to readers in this chapter: Words might grant us access to a previously unknown state. Americans read about the disappearance of tree frogs in Panama, the droughts occurring in parts of the Middle East and Africa, and the heat waves killing thousands in Europe and the United States, but they often feel removed from these events, even though they are happening in their own backyard and likely impacting their own lives.