Nicole Caldwell’s Post

Seventeen years ago, I moved from New York City to a tiny hamlet in Northern New York where the most recent population estimate was 371 people. The transition to rural life wasn't without challenges, to be sure; but like so many stories about taking leaps, moving here provided many life lessons and colorful characters in spades along the way—to say nothing of the unfettered access to the natural world. I’ve watched from this rural perch in equal parts disbelief and shame as our country devolved into chaotic culture wars. Communities like mine got painted with a broad brush as “Trump Country” and “anti-environmentalist,” even as my friends protected wetlands, cleaned up garbage along the St. Lawrence River, tracked water quality in lakes, or spent virtually every waking second of their day outdoors enjoying nature. To be clear, I’m not just talking about liberals. While North Country gatherings took on the tenor of a joke’s opening line—“A vegan, a Trump voter, and a libertarian walk into a bar—” elsewhere, people wrote each other off for their politics. None of this is to say everyone here agrees on all things or that everyone around here is some kind of saint; nothing could be further from the truth. But as our collective intolerance for one another seems to thrive in equal measure to our ignorance of one another, I’m proud to live in a place where I feel largely accepted by a constellation of strange and wonderful people who may vote or think differently from me, but who are tolerant of differences and share a reverence for, and reliance on, the natural world. So when I had the opportunity to pitch a new series for Atmos Magazine, I suggested a body of work highlighting rural communities coming together in defense of each other and the Earth. Areas like mine, where people stood up to development on shorelines that host fragile ecosystems hanging on by a thread; or cleaned up old dump sites; or revived a river after a devastating oil spill. We found two WONDERFUL journalists—writer Katie Hill-Schurg and photographer Isabelle Zhao—who spent this summer crisscrossing the country to talk to people in rural America who have come together to protect their corners of the planet. These are the kinds of stories playing out all around us if we will just pick up our heads and stop letting people tell us we’re more divided than ever; if we will talk to each other and work to find common ground; to listen to each other and accept that we’re different and also still find a way to come together and make things better. The first edition of the six-part "Good Neighbors" series comes out this Thursday—you can sign up at https://lnkd.in/dcraidN4 to get each edition in your inbox.