Arianna Knolla
Pittsford, NY
2024, Senior, Creative Writing

I never went to church, temple, or mosque; I am not religious, but I’ve learned plenty of hymns to my own creators—Earth and Nature. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Turn off lights when you leave the room. Don’t leave the water running while you brush your teeth. Leave no trace.

I have been absorbing these lessons since my teachers were telling me about the alphabet and adding. They are so ingrained into me that they’re akin to manners or customs, not just some conditioned behavior or lifestyle choice. In some way or another, I have never not been fighting for our planet, fighting for our future. I just didn’t always realize how close that future would be.

I remember how much it used to snow. When I would get in my snowpants to wait for the bus so that I could sled. I nearly slid right into the road in front of the bus once, at my old house. I remember standing in wait for the bus, cheeks rosy, as it struggled through the snow. Drawing on the bus’s frosty windows, ignoring the poor, flustered driver’s reprimands. I remember the excitement of a snow day. No school! No school! No school! I remember coming into middle school extremely late one day because the bus had such a challenging time getting to the school through the snow and ice; I only caught the last five minutes of forty of my first class. I heard stories about buses getting stuck, and kids getting blueberry pancakes from friendly neighbors. I remember ski club having to cancel trips because it was too cold, not too warm. I remember the bus skidding on a steep hill because we were ahead of the plow, and the road had not been cleared for hours. I used to hear them all the time in the winter months, pushing and salting and clearing and protecting. Snow delays. Snow days. Cold days. No school, no school, no school.

I remember Halloweens where I was filled with unbridled rage about having to wear a winter jacket over my costume even though I would be freezing otherwise. I remember begrudgingly obeying my mother in the name of free candy, walking around the neighborhood in heavy, warm boots and a puffy parka, my witch dress just barely visible. I remember shivering anyway, as the cold nipped my cheeks.

I remember when I would wake up on Christmas day to a bright, snowy lawn whose sparkle shone as bright as my joy on that merry holiday. I remember my brother and Grandma betting on whether there would be snow, and how often the one who believed in a snowy Christmas was right. I remember always hoping for a white Christmas; I grew up in New York, why shouldn’t—why wouldn’t—there be snow in December, almost January at that?

Then it was wind days. Fierce storms sending sticks at the house like spears; massive branches tumbling out of the sky. I remember a power outage at the transportation office caused school to be cancelled. No school! No school! No school! I remember having an extra day of classes one year when we used up all our snow days and then some because of snowstorms and spring gales. Fewer and fewer days off in winter. More, stronger storms in the supposedly sunny springtime. Trees swaying ominously in the backyard, bending and breaking. Arching aggressively one way then snapping back the other. What if they fall? What if they fall? What if they fall? I remember hiding in the basement family room when a tornado touched down a few hours away from us. Gathering the pets, sitting on the cement floor. Running to the bathroom in case danger was close—though it never was. The only time a tornado has come anywhere near my home in upstate New York in the almost two decades I have been alive, or at least that I can recall. We don’t have tornado drills in upstate New York, but I still lived through one, minor as it was, something I never would have seen coming.

I remember Halloweens that were cold and wet with rain instead of snow. Trudging through puddled streets and muddy yards while wrestling with carrying an umbrella at the same time as my candy bucket and getting wet anyway. I remember how there were always fewer people, and no one was as happy. I remember how all that rain, rain, rain took away from the celebration more than biting snow ever could.

I remember when Christmas Eve was the only big snowstorm that winter; one blizzardy day in all three months. How the yard being coated in several inches of sticky snow was the result of a storm that cancelled fun festivities and froze the pipes in the small ‘apartment’ above the rest of our house, not a movie-worthy scene of childlike holiday spirit. I remember the one storm that winter worthy of a snow day falling over break, when already there was no school, no school, no school.

Next was the heat. The constant ‘record highs’ and burning sun. I remember Halloweens where I ended up with the light jacket I brought tied around my waist since I didn’t need it, even after dark, worrying it would fall off and be lost in the night. I remember heat induced nausea as thirty people tried to dance and sing together under blistering stage lights in 80-degree weather in April. In mid-April, when only a handful of years ago, we would have been worried about a late frost or even a snowstorm. I remember bringing a lunchbox filled with nothing but ice packs so no one would throw up or suffer a heat stroke. We were all sweat-soaked and sickly each day after the three-hour rehearsals and shows, and not able to do anything about the lack of A/C or horrendous conditions. I remember how much water I drank, despite my normal bad hydration habits, because I needed its relief so desperately.

More recently came the smoke. I remember coughing and choking. The sky turned orange, and not the photogenic sunset kind. An ugly kind. The kind that threatened: beware—I am toxic. We tried wearing masks, but we still could not breathe. My mom wheezed, unable to fight her mild asthma in the haze that surrounded us. I wished for a smoke day, no school, no school, no school, but one did not come. No matter that we had not had a snow day; there had not been weather to merit one. No matter that we had not had a wind day; there had not been weather to merit one. It was just as bad at home as it was at school, anyway. It was just as bad the next day, anyway. I remember as we all stalked the weather apps, watching the air quality degrade and degrade and degrade. We likened it to the apocalypse, yet we did not fear the end because we knew it had been a long time coming. That choking smoke, in our face. In our hair. In our eyes, our nose, our throat. Choking, choking, choking.

Now it’s just mud. Flood. Rain, rain, rain. School day after school day, campus open and classes active. Squelching grass. Dirty boots. Freezing rain but still just rain, rain, rain. Rivers bursting their banks in January from snowmelt and rainfall, as if spring had come three months early. Constant puddles that only grew as winter progressed, with no sign of freezing over. The nearby creek crossing the road, making the local park a hazard to drive through. I remember walking with my dad, walking past a river as it started to rain. It rained, rained, rained, and it was refreshing in the summer heat, until we got back to that trail and realized it had flooded over. All that rain, rain, rain making the river rise several inches over the path, soaking our feet through our socks and shoes. Now there are rainstorms in February as I drive to work, muddying my shoes in the damp grass instead of stumbling over snowbanks.

This is the future that as a child I thought I would not see for decades if at all in my lifetime. For so long, I felt so separated from the impending climate crises facing our planet Earth that I hoped to mitigate by sticking to my hymns but did not properly fear. Now, I can only pray to whoever is listening that we will go beyond those hymns, because now they are not enough. Maybe even when I first learned reduce, reuse, recycle; turn off the lights and don’t leave the water running; leave no trace, it was already too little, too late. Now it certainly is. The old psalms will not help us now. We need new hymns. Rather, we need to listen to the hymns that have been taught to us, but that we chose not to follow because it hardly seemed necessary then. They are now.

Now, I cry myself to sleep over the instability of our world. The unsustainability of society as it stands. Fearing the uncertainty of just when it will collapse because we already know how. Now, I am haunted by the Earth’s tears as she weeps for us and for herself, as we rip her apart. Drain her lifeforce. How soon until humanity goes extinct? How soon until there is nothing left for us here but ash and parched soil? How soon until we are gone from here forever, and where will we have gone then? Now, I am hopelessly adrift, burdened with the knowledge of humanity’s greed and powerless on my own to stop this out-of-control tide before it washes us off our planet and out of our homes permanently. Now, I can only beg that maybe we can overcome selfishness and stupidity but dread because maybe we won’t because we haven’t yet.

My hymns used to reassure me that I was doing my part. They offer me no such comfort now. I did my part, and it did nothing. And what larger part can I play now? The people with the strength and weapons to battle this beast of our own making have not. They have not listened to scientists. They have not listened to advocates, and they have not listened to the communities they are supposed to protect. Why would they listen to me? What can one voice add when they are deaf to the pleas of millions already?

My generation grew up surrounded by these hymns that I have lived by since childhood. Many of us sent wishes or prayers that things would be well, back when we were naive enough to think humanity could be compassionate to the planet. Now all we have left are unfulfilled promises, empty hymns and forgotten prayers.

Share Gallery

Hymns and Prayers