Pamela, age 57, and daughter Tess, age 17

Intergenerational Description of Joint Project:

The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve is less than a mile from our home.  Often my daughter Tess and I have retreated to this 225-acre natural oasis in Los Angeles, but Tess leaves for college in 2009.  The reserve is threatened with a proposed freeway interchange expansion.  Celebrate the beauty now.

Celebration of Rachel Carson’s Sense of Wonder:

"I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel."  Long ago the poet/scientist Rachel Carson inspired me to take Tess’s small hand and guide her where we both still feel a sense of wonder.

Essay:

     We've walked many a path at The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve, Tess and I have.  We’ve been glad for the shade of the oaks and cottonwoods on a summer afternoon.  We’ve rested and chatted on Hummingbird Hill after a springtime, volunteer Saturday clean-up session. We’ve been silent together as we watched the early-morning, winter fog and egrets collect along the edges of the man-made lake. 
     But today we head instinctively to that little portion of the Los Angeles river that is not completely concrete, where native vegetation grows and once we spotted a Great Blue Heron.  It is here we stop to talk, finally, about college and Canadian geese and how life changes.
     Tess begins.  "Don’t you think University of San Francisco is a great school?"
     "I do."  I say, and it’s true.  It is a great school.  Perfect for Tess.  I don’t say how  grateful I am it’s not two other great schools she’s considered, NYU or Emerson.  They’re so far away… a continent away.
     My daughter’s musing, and I assume it’s about schools, but she surprises me when she asks.  "Where is it they’re talking about putting the new freeway offramp?"
    I point.  "Right around there."
    "What about the geese?"
    For twenty years, longer than Tess has been on this earth, migrating Canadian geese have been trained to rest and forage here.  It’s a rare and beautiful place that could be disturbed or even destroyed by the expansion of one of the country’s busiest freeway exchanges, and we both know it.  "It’ll change things."  That’s all I say.
     "Remember in The Little Prince about being responsible for what we tame?"
     I wonder if she realizes just how tough a question she’s asked and how much she’s grown up in the fifteen years we’ve been coming to this sanctuary.  How slowly I used to have to walk so that she could keep up, how tightly she held to my hand.  I’ve been quiet too long.  She asks me.
     "Can’t we do something… protest what’s happening?"
     "We could."
     "Then let’s do it."
     Gone was the little girl.  Sometimes change was good.  This young woman was ready to take responsibility for Canadian geese and her own life.