Yesterday, I joined the hundreds of volunteers who fanned Southside Park and Rose Rudman trail, gloved and toting garbage bags. Keep Tyler Beautiful hosted the Great Tyler Clean Up, an annual event where residents care for their shared and public green spaces – with complimentary t-shirts and lunch to boot.
There is one woman, though, who totes a trash bag and scans for bits of plastic long after organized clean-up days. It’s my friend Janet.
You may see Janet on any given day fishing a giant glass Vodka bottle out of a creek or rescuing trapped water from bottles before tossing them in a recycle bin.
After high school band practices at Rose Stadium, I have watched Janet reach into her purse and yank out a giant trash bag, scanning the stadium for water bottles. “You have to empty them first,” she would explain as she twisted the plastic lids and turned the bottles upside down. “Otherwise, the water stays trapped and can’t get back into the water cycle.”
I confess I have never seen the two inches left inside a water bottle the same.
Janet also tosses worms.
After a rainy night, she’ll walk through neighborhoods picking up their writhing, brownish-pink bodies. She’ll move them from the asphalt, where they would surely dry up and die, to a patch of grass.
Why?
Because Janet knows that worms are “the living, breathing, engineers of the underworld, eating and recycling organic matter,” as one webpage puts it.
Worms break down organic matter and recycle it, packing soil with nutrients. Their tunnels loosen the soil so it can soak up water more efficiently. They even break down human-made pollutants and convert them into non-toxic molecules.
In praise of worms, Charles Darwin wrote, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures.”
Janet’s behaviors have rubbed off on me.
On an early spring morning last month, I walked among dozens of fat, still-wet wriggling worms, each body elegantly housing a mouth, an intestine, and a whopping five hearts. One by one, I picked them up and flung them into my neighbors’ yards as I passed.
Do I have a bleeding heart for each of these plump, flailing critters?
Not really – although they can and do feel pain.
Like Janet, I toss worms because I know the world needs their tunneling and composting superpowers.
I am happy to keep a single worm alive, but there is something larger at stake: the ecosystem, the food chain, the water table, the health and future of the planet.
Though it’s a little tacky to compare people to worms, I can’t help but think about human impacts.
I grew up hearing the story of the little boy who combed the beach and tossed starfish back into the ocean so they could regenerate. The punchline, “I can’t save all the starfish, but I can save this one,” was meant to inspire.
The tossing-worms lesson turns the starfish story on its head: “Fine if one creature lives, but it’s their larger role that matters, and the more, the better.”
This punchline resonates with me as I go about my life and work in Tyler.
I think about it when I see my neighbors pick up trash or send their children to school or vote or tell their stories or ask for more because they want something better.
I’m cheering for my neighbors and me to be more healthy, fulfilled and free from suffering.
Moreso, I’m cheering for our collective, vital impact to make life better for us all.