Power Sprouts from a Fallen Tree

At 12 years old, my angsty tween phase was at its peak. 

Blasting emo music and being angry at the world was all I knew. However, the anger in my small body was nothing against the angry winds threatening everything I’ve ever known outside of my home. The wind howled and sliced through the air, turning that summer dusk into my worst nightmare. The world was just as angry as me, and it was going to unleash its wrath. 

I begged my dad to come and hide with us all under the table. He laughed, after being a Minnesotan local for twenty years, he was familiar with the summer storms. Loud, but relatively harmless. However, unlike other storms we’ve experienced, I could clearly see the stress on his face as he began to pace. I thought he was scared of the noise like me, but he was worried about the damages and whether he was ready to foot a bill from a storm like this. 

The rumbling wind and thunder left us with silence and sunlight beaming through our windows the next morning. The house was eerily quiet, which meant that my very large and loud family was outside. As I ran through the yard barefoot, I could feel the wet grass as the only sign of the vicious storm of the night before. It wasn’t until I reached my dad that I saw the largest indicator of last night’s terror: our giant evergreen slain by the wind was laying on a power line in our backyard. 

That tree sheltered me as I’d play hide and seek, read whatever book I could find, and cried about summer ending.

With a single storm, the tree went from a blessing to a burden.

My parents were anxious; our neighbors already hated us for “being too loud” and not looking like them. They would come into our yard and talk to my dad as if he was the cause of their electricity being out and babying him as he talked to every company he could think of. Those were the days I noticed his thick accent most and how we would never fit in. 

My dad was scared to admit out loud that we frankly could not afford the removal of the tree. I saw him trembling as he assessed how dangerous it would be to remove the tree from the power line alone. My mom stopped him by scrounging for enough money and telling him how we’d rely on the food shelf until we recovered.

My body couldn’t handle the information. My anger had an outlet. I was angry at our neighbors, at the companies for ignoring us, at the lack of electricity, at my dad for stupidly trying to move the tree and for not being able to afford any of this. I was angry at the world for making this issue exist. I was angry. 

I was forced to care for the environment, seeing how it impacted my family and other communities of color. I couldn’t ignore the issue, since that led to draining our pockets and destroying our homes. Nothing was on our side; we were the last to get help if the electricity went out. 

We were on the frontlines for an issue we most certainly did not cause; I was not having it. 

Now, I use my voice to advocate for communities of color and marginalized folks. If no one will listen to us, I’ll make sure we are so loud that we can’t be ignored. My anger turned into resilience, driving me to make space for myself to incite change. As I continue through college, I know the power of noisily pushing for divestment and a just transition that centers those that this world does not care for.

My anger now fuels me to continue working, even though the climate space isn’t made for people who look like me. It has become hope for a future where we are liberated from constant destruction for corporations. It has taught me that there may not be a way out of this mess, but I can always assure myself that there is a way forward.