Becoming Earth (Eva Saulitis)
For 25 years Eva Saulitis studied orcas in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and traveled the world as a marine biologist. She was also a longtime essayist and poet, writing Becoming Earth after her diagnosis with breast cancer. Her essays explore her thoughts on mortality, but also nature. The vividness and richness with which she describes the Alaskan wilderness, Hawaii, and her childhood near Lake Erie is almost delicious. This is a book you can feel, smell, and taste. And I was drawn to it because Saulitis’s terminal cancer diagnosis caused her to reflect and write about nature, and what it means to die and return to the earth.
So much of what Saulitis contemplates in Becoming Earth has been on my mind. Is it necessary to “make a mark” on the world? To this Saulitis reflects “since my cancer diagnosis, I obsess about what traces, if any, we leave behind. There are worse things that could happen than disappearing without a trace, aren’t there? Some birds live out their whole lives never having been observed by a human being. Don’t they matter?” I would like to inhabit this truth: that living is enough, and that a life free from accomplishment or accolade is in no way a lesser one.
She also reflects on living in a death-phobic culture, how lonely and isolating it is to be surrounded by people uncomfortable with death, unsatisfied with the present. In the wild she feels at home. In nature the evidence of death is everywhere, and she says these things “tell me death is true, right, graceful, not tragic, not failure, not defeat.” Becoming Earth is very much about a woman passionately connected to nature who finds great comfort in wild places. “Death is nature. Nature is far from over […] and though I die, though I lose my life, nature wins. Nature endures. It is strange, and it is hard, but it is comfort, and I’ll take it.”
Saulitis loved the wilderness. Loved it so fully that what comforted her was knowing she would return to the earth, become part of the ecosystems she treasured. Although completely non-secular, there is a beautiful Youtube compilation of her husband and loved ones scattering her ashes all over the world, in the places she adored most. Her thoughts on grief, doubt, and presence are deeply relatable. I feel confident in saying that if you are grappling with mortality and find nature (somehow inexplicably) to be a balm for your fears, you will find lots to enjoy about Becoming Earth.
(also, look at how the nifty plastic cover made cool reflections on my office wall)
