claire latané

I’m trying to get the pterodactyl off my back.

You’ve heard of the butterfly effect … the pterodactyl is no less intertwined into every choice we make. With the Dakota Access Pipeline injustice, fear of fracking-related earthquake, and a general repulsion for war, I’m making a bigger effort to wash my hands of oil and its by-products.

Walking, biking, and public transit have always been my MO. I bought my house because I could walk or bus to nearly anywhere I needed to go. With my latest job and the need to get around Southern California quickly for meetings, I acquired an all-electric car. Three months of no gas fill-ups makes me ridiculously happy.

But what about the energy I’m using when I plug in? California is progressive, but still heavily reliant on fossil fuels for its energy supply. While Senate Bill 350 mandates 50% energy from renewable sources by 2030, we now get just over 10% of our power that way. Fortunately, I can do something directly as a homeowner. I signed a contract for PV panels to use the sun’s energy to recharge my car.

To install them, though, I needed a new roof.

“That roof will collapse your house in an earthquake,” my realtor told me when I first looked at the house. It had five layers of asphalt shingles oozing at the eaves like lasagne noodles. Replacing them with one new layer of asphalt would have been easy. But I wanted to hold out until I could afford metal … twice the cost but with so many benefits.

A metal roof is cooler than asphalt, will allow me to use rainwater in my garden without fear of contaminating my vegetables, will last 60-100 years as opposed to 15-20, and isn’t made of petroleum products. It was an easy decision.

“Asphalt shingle roofs are the most compatible with PVs,” said the American Solar Direct representative in my living room.

“But I want a cool roof,” I said, throwing out the term used in design for roofing that reduces the urban heat island effect.

“Asphalt is what our engineers recommend,” she answered. “They will have to approve metal first.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I’m getting solar panels to reduce my use of fossil fuels … and a metal roof will help keep my house and community cooler, reducing our use of energy in air conditioning, and I can safely harvest rainwater. It’s not just about the PVs, it’s about the whole interconnected system.”

“Oh! I thought you meant cool roof as in it looks cool,” she said. “Let’s call the engineer.”

We talked it through with the engineer, who approved the metal roof. And then I talked it through with two more people from the solar company, who called to question the metal roof. I got my roofer involved in the conversation with them, and he sent the details for a special clip they use to attach photovoltaic panels to standing seam metal roofs which actually makes it the easiest system to install them on.

So it’ll happen. My metal roof is scheduled to be installed in January, and the photovoltaics go in right after that.

In the meantime, I’m designing my rainwater harvesting system so I can catch and reuse rain to water my garden and maybe even bathe in. Metal roofs allow that.

The next hurdle? Most large rain tanks are made of plastic: another petroleum product.

“He’s ready.” The hospice nurse had woken us a minute before. I sat in an overstuffed chair at one side of the bed, my mom on the other, the morning my grandfather died. He breathed in one last rattled breath and let go. As I looked across the bed to my mom, a movement behind her drew my gaze to the garden. Out the open window, a hummingbird hovered, facing me. It caught my eye for more than a moment then flickered away.

That hummingbird brought me peace and lightness around my grandfather’s death … a lasting connection to him that presents itself every time I see a hummingbird. My first recollections of hummingbirds were those whirring about his ranch house in the desert outside Tucson. They fed at the yuccas and ocotillos and perched on the thin branches of mesquites around the small dark pool where he swam everyday. They hovered over the water that buoyed him and flew back and forth as his powerful arms propelled him across the pool, unencumbered by the crutches that supported him on land. The hummingbird is the perfect symbol of my grandfather’s love and stamina and the desert he called home. And they are everywhere, or so it seems.

After my Ohio-North Carolina childhood (split by divorce) I moved through the Appalachians and the North Carolina foothills before heading west. I moved from small town America through suburbs and bedroom communities before ending up in L.A. My brother moved to Austin before New York, and my sister moved to Tucson and then Los Angeles before me. As an empty nester, our mom left Columbus for Tucson to be close to her dad. I had lived in Columbus, Chapel Hill, Kill Devil Hills, Buladean, Statesville, Cornelius, Diamond Bar, Walnut, and Eagle Rock and visited my family in their many places. In nearly every place I am, there is a moment when I think I could live here. This feels like home. Sometimes it is the person I am with, or a street I am walking on that brings on a lost memory or a loved feeling. But mostly it is an atmosphere.

Just now, sitting outside in my garden and hearing the familiar whir of hummingbird wings, I feel it. A helicopter is flying overhead, not low enough to clatter the windows, but accompanied by sirens in the distance. People are having a light-hearted conversation somewhere nearby, just far enough away that I can’t hear what they’re saying. The low roar of traffic reminds me of the freeway on the edge of the valley. But the feeling is here with me, outside. The sun is breaking through the orange tree and warming a spot on my arm. A cool-ish breeze, the smell of earth and dried leaves under varying trees, and the chirps and flutters and tweets of birds bring me home instantly.

We pulled them out. The unwanted weeds. Brought by wind and in free city mulch. From who knows were. They took up residence in the pavement cracks and the bare dirt, and the gravel. We deemed them undesirable. Despite their wild beauty. Despite their many (medicinal and edible and material) uses. Germinated by winter rains and early warmth, they threatened to overtake the flowers and succulents that we planted there before. We weeded for days. We tried to uproot them before they set seed, lest they reproduce. And smother the more delicate plants we intentioned.

The weeds were beautiful. Wildflowers. Was it their foreign ancestry that made them unwelcome? Their ability to adapt? Their unruly character? Or our lack of understanding them? Would becoming familiar with their uses let us appreciate them? Love them like we did as children holding them to our chins, making wishes on their floating seeds, chewing on their sour stems?

I ask out of desperation. Because my garden has become more weeds than selected species. And I am tired of weeding. But also because I cannot look at its weediness without thinking of my children: gangly and beautiful and wild. And not just my children but all of those somewhat prickly teenagers floating out into the world to find themselves and root themselves much like the weeds we pull and the weed they smoke. In fact, hemp (Cannabis sativa) was a major U.S. fiber crop from colonial days until after World War II, when cheap synthetic fiber killed demand for it.

We don’t welcome teens into our everyday urban lives. Our sidewalk seating is reserved for paying customers. Our plaza steps and walls are designed to reject skateboards. Our new parks with tot lots, welcome children aged 5-12. Our high schools are fenced and locked to try to keep them in. This only makes them want to escape. They have the skate parks in the corners of some of our parks. And their friends’ basements or the converted garage. Or fast food joints. Or in our neighborhood, the amphitheater behind Yosemite Park where drug deals go down. No wonder they become reclusive … they feel unwanted and anxious.

Teenagers are forgotten, or purposely excluded, in planning and design. A New York Times article called out how suburban design was failing teens nearly two decades ago, in the Columbine aftermath. A more recent academic article describes in detail the benefits for all when teenagers participate in the urban and community design process. Today’s teenagers are tomorrow’s environmental stewards and decision-makers. How we include them and plan for them will make a difference in how they approach the problems they inherit. How we treat them today will shape how they treat us tomorrow.

California’s Institute for Local Government wrote a white paper on the who, what, why, where, and how of engaging young people in the planning process. And because I can’t let go of the parallel between teens and weed(s), check out this NPR story on foraging for edible weeds in the urban landscape.

Let’s cherish these wild, wind-blown weeds and teens. Let’s listen to them and plan for them and with them. Let’s learn from them about determination and resilience. As the future gets tougher and hotter and wetter or dryer (depending on where you live), we’re going to need both.