I met Gale Norton, who has
announced her resignation as Interior Secretary, in the public
restroom at the Denver International Airport. She was coming out of
the handicapped stall with a black roller bag. She is a tall,
handsome woman.
We ended up washing our hands at
neighboring basins.
Should I or shouldn’t I?
I did.
“Secretary Norton —- ”
“Yes?” she said, smiling.
I introduced myself and
extended my hand.
Her smile disappeared as she declined
to shake it.
A few months earlier, I had written an
opinion piece for the New York Times critical of
the Bush administration’s energy policy. If it was being
conducted quietly behind closed doors in Washington, D.C., it was a
ground-thumping reality in the outback of Utah’s redrock
desert.
Withdrawing my wet hand, I said, “I realize this
is an awkward situation, but surely there must be some way to find
a common point of conversation between us as two women from the
American West.”
She wrung her hands and walked over to
the wall behind us to dry them.
I did the same.
In all honesty, I don’t recall our exact exchange of words. I
was nervous.
What I can tell you is that our words were
few. There was nothing in Secretary Norton’s demeanor that
said she was under any obligation or courtesy to engage with a
citizen, particularly this one. Granted, it could be strongly
argued I was infringing on her privacy, but given the lack of
access with anyone in this administration, I took my chances.
What I do remember Secretary Norton saying to me was
something along the lines, “If you knew what we knew, you would
think differently.”
This was a familiar response to me,
growing up in a religious background where authority was respected,
not questioned. If your testimony of God was not as strong as that
of the true believers, it was because you were on the other side of
goodness.
After a rather spirited exchange over why she
and former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt withdrew protection from
wilderness study areas, we tried to straighten our skirts and
establish some semblance of conviviality. Both of us promised to
send each other reading materials. In the secretary’s case,
she promised to send me a new publication coming out of the
Department of the Interior — illuminating her “Four Cs of
Conservation” — communication, consultation, cooperation, all
in the service of conservation — which I did receive, with
her card.
Now, Secretary Norton has turned in her
resignation. Her last day on the job will be March 31, 2006. She
told President Bush in her letter that she looks forward to
returning to the private sector and eventually coming home to
Colorado.
In the end, we did shake hands and looked one
another in the eyes before going our separate ways.
I
remember boarding my plane almost late, sitting down, still
trembling from our encounter.
Flying over southwestern
Colorado, all I could see out my window was a spider web of roads,
crisscrossing the desert, each one leading to Gale Norton’s
legacy of black well pumps, designed by the oil and gas companies
who paved her way into American history.
Terry
Tempest Williams is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News in Paonia, Colorado
(hcn.org). Her most recent book is The Open Space of
Democracy. She lives in Castle Valley,
Utah.
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