Where were you when Chernobyl blew? I was planting peas. Some of you reading this were not yet born on April 26, 1986. But you carry the deadly atoms of that disaster in you. Your body remembers, deep in its cells. And the Earth remembers.
It wasn't an April like this one. The cold lingered that spring. I was late getting the peas in. The sky was grey, and a cold drizzle was falling. Vital spring rains. Not so welcome, that day. The first wave of fallout from the Chernobyl reactor, burning uncontrollably half a world away, arrived over Vermont. The rains were washing the radiation out of the sky. Onto me. Into the earth.
It took an act of faith to continue planting in ground now subtly poisoned with radiation. Also, there was no choice. I pushed the peas a half inch deeper than the package recommended. And I prayed for the land and the people of Chernobyl, of Ukraine, of Europe all more acutely irradiated than myself.
Another spring has arrived, 22 years after that disaster. I'm thinking about planting peas again. And I'm wondering: What if a similar disaster happened closer to home? My imagination takes me to the business section of The New York Times:...