A new collection of essays and poems is set to be released Tuesday, Oct. 1 exploring the unique and often intimate role that water plays in our day-to-day lives – but also the immense power it wields.
KUNM sat down with Laura Paskus, the editor of “Water Bodies: Love Letters to the Most Abundant Substance on Earth,” to learn more about what readers can expect from writers here in the West.
PASKUS: I've been thinking a lot about water in terms of rivers in New Mexico don't have rights to their own waters, which I think is crazy. And so I've been thinking a lot about water as like their own entities, just like humans and animals. You know, waters have their own needs and desires, and so I put the call out to some of my favorite writers to write about their really personal connections with water.
KUNM: So, speaking of who's involved... Give us a little bit of a taste.
PASKUS: The New Mexico contributors include Michelle Otero, Leanna Torres, Maria Lane from UNM, Santana Shorty – a poet and writer up in Santa Fe, and Fatima van Hattum – who's a poet and activist in Santa Fe as well. And then, outside of New Mexico, we have Luke Runyon and Daniel Rothberg and Chris La Trey, Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk… Like, oh my gosh, so many amazing people.
KUNM: What can we expect when we turn to the first page?
PASKUS: KUNM listeners are really familiar with the climate crisis, which is big and overwhelming. And you do lots of stories about the Rio Grande, and we're always thinking about our watersheds. I really wanted to think about our local waters, and how we connect with the most local waters — even like a puddle after a monsoon, the water in a sauna. How do we connect most intimately with water? Because the climate crisis is overwhelming, but the realities of water are close and every day and loving right?
KUNM: I've talked with you many times about the negative aspects of covering climate change. It seems like we're flipping that narrative on its head and looking at some positives and more of a poetic approach to our climate crisis. Why do you think it's so important to look at the good as well as the bad?
PASKUS: Even for me, when I look at the global climate crisis, it's very overwhelming, and it's really easy when people feel overwhelmed, to feel apathy or despair or like nothing matters. And I can totally feel like that, right? Like, after a hard week of reporting, I'm so sad and overwhelmed, and then I go, like, up to Abiquiu and jump in the lake, or jump in the Chama below the dam, and I'm like: “Oh, everything's okay! This moment, everything is okay.” And I think if we all connected in that way and felt okay about it, and joyful and also thoughtful. I'm so confident that New Mexicans and Westerners can address the climate crisis.
KUNM: How have humans shaped our waterways? And how do you think we can improve as our climate gets drier and hotter?
PASKUS: We need to think about water as its own being, its own entity. We can try to pin water back behind dams and in reservoirs, and we can imagine, even for a century or two centuries, that we have some sense of control over water. We don't. When we think that we do, we trick ourselves into building communities and building our world in a totally unsustainable way. If we listen to water, if we pay attention to water, if we live in harmony with water, I think we'll have a much better chance of addressing anything, including climate change. I would love for us to shift our thinking about water as something that we consume or use, but something that we coexist with.
A panel discussion and signing celebrating the book’s release takes place at Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande NW in Albuquerque on Tuesday, Oct. 1 starting at 6pm.
