Pushcart 2026 L: Wendy Willis, “From Hedge to Hedge” (non-fiction) from Oregon Humanities, Summer 2024

During normal daylight hours, I work with and for other kinds of people. Specifically, I direct a statewide community engagement program that connects Oregonians—particularly those that have been excluded from public decision-making—to the decisions that affect them. …. I listened to some of the usual sparring about in-stream versus out-of-stream water use—people need water to drink, to make a living, to grow the food we eat. And also, the fish. The turtles. When it was my turn, the presentation went to plan, and the commissioners asked a few polite questions. But just before I got up to leave, one commissioner looked past me, up and to the left, not really talking to me so much as thinking out loud: “But what about the rivers themselves? How do we hear from the rivers on their own behalf?” I felt as if a fissure had opened in my brain and a burst of light had poured out. Wait, what? I grasped at a thought just out of reach. And then it was gone—the seam closed. I gathered my things,…

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