Tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives. - Epilogue
At age 38, Terry Tempest Williams declared herself the matriarch of the family, which she described as “The Clan of One Breasted Women.” Her book Refuge documents the journey which brought her to this conclusion.
Throughout the book she has woven several interconnected stories. In one she described the journey of her mother, Diane Tempest, from health to death by cancer, which she had thought she had beaten with a mastectomy several years before. Her illness resurfaced as abdominal cancer, which took her life after surgeries and chemotherapy.
Meanwhile, the waters of Great Salt Lake are rising and inundating the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge where her grandmother taught her the art and science of bird watching. The waters threaten not only the birds, but also the airport and other human developments. Government officials, political organizations, and chambers of commerce plan various strategies to ameliorate the damage to their built environment, and perhaps even develop an engineering feat that will save business and investment and also become a tourist attraction in its own right.
Along the way, Williams takes the reader along on two archaeological digs, one of which ends in a farcical emergency trip home. She describes artistic instillations in the desert, ancient cultures, her work at the Utah Museum of Natural History her Mormon heritage, and her family.
She talked a bit about her dad, her brothers, and her husband Brooke, but the women of her family comprised the focus of her narrative. Within a short time after her mother’s death, both of her grandmothers died (both had suffered cancer), and she realized that only two of nine closely related women remained alive.
In the book she discussed her realization that she is a “down winder,” exposed to fallout as a result of nuclear testing in Utah and Nevada. She spoke of the red scare of the 1950’s and of how any opposition to the testing made one suspect, possibly believed to be in favor of a communist regime. At one point she said “The evidence is buried, dead sheep.”
Ultimately, the birds returned to Bear River, but Williams realized that her only refuge was within. She stated, perhaps as a result of a dream, that she is one of many women who mourn the deaths and the changes to the desert, and they will no longer be silent.
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Ray has organized events and served as Master of Ceremonies at numerous venues throughout the Chattanooga region. He has appeared as a storyteller and performance poet at The Camp House (Chattanooga), Barking Legs Theatre (Chattanooga), The Southern Festival of Books (Nashville), Solstice Story Telling of the Joseph Campbell Mythological Round Table (Chattanooga), The Chattanooga Nature Center, Audubon Acres (Chattanooga) and the Beatnik Poetry Readings of the Trenton Arts Council (Trenton).