Wednesday, December 9, 2009
8:30am
It rained last night. A lot. I was expecting to wake up to an icy layer that coated everything. But it seems the temperature has risen, just slightly. It’s still cold. I bundled up in my husband’s jacket, knowing that if my core is at least warm, my fingers and nose will survive. It is just after morning rush hour. The steady stream of cars down Washington Blvd and Penn Ave. are slowly starting to die down. I look up to see the clouds moving quickly. They part where their gases are thin, revealing the piercing morning sun in intermittent streams.
Although it is a weekday morning, and I hear life all around me, man-made life that is: cars, buses, construction and footsteps, there is a pleasant but strong movement coming from my natural surroundings. My honey locust is completely bare now, swaying with a momentum that starts at the tip of its branches and disappears somewhere closer to its trunk. The black spruce is still full of needles, but its tiny cones have dwindled down to short skinny pods that hang along the upper ledge of branches. They look cold, as though they are hiding inside the tree’s full bushy arms, like me in my big jacket.
I try to envision what this place looked like when I first started writing this blog. Green was everywhere, highlighted by the summer light. I couldn’t see the sky and backdrop. I couldn’t see the rooftops beyond the telephone wires. I couldn’t see people inside their windows getting ready to start the day. It makes me think of how cleansing winter can feel, as though all the “fluffy” stuff (the bushes, leaves, flowers and tall grass) has been swept clean by cold winds and frost. It’s a time when we go indoors to spend our time. We live in close corridors with our loved ones, we smell the inside air, we cuddle up next to our pets and our lights, hoping to seek a similar warmth we feel outside in summer and spring.
I realize I love winter for that very reason. It is a forcing “in” of people and things. And, in a good way. My husband and I have been spending less and less time together, because he has been extremely busy between his job and outside consulting work. I long for the cold nights when he does come home, because there is no where for us to go but right next to each other. Although we love to venture out from time to time when the snow is so thick all you see it white, for now I am happy sitting on the couch by the shine of Christmas lights. It makes me think that it is not just holidays that bring out the “closeness” in people, or the feelings of gratefulness and thanks. It is nature itself: a winter season with more intent than imagined. With the intent to encourage our busy lives and frantic schedules to slow down, curl up and get warm, right next to the people we love most.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Final Reflection to Nature Writing Course
Coming into this course, I was eager to delve into the world of nature writing. For me, it was even more appealing because I have spent the past year of my time here at Chatham focusing my own writing on the natural world and environment. As a result of this course not only am I more interested in nature writing, but I also have discovered a much deeper and more meaningful level of writing. I now see nature writing as a place to reveal the most innate behaviors of the human condition, to revel in intimate interactions with the natural world, and to spread a degree of understanding and appreciation of the world around us so that we may tread more lightly upon it.
Although it was complicated and we often found ourselves back where we started, I will never forget our first class discussion concerning “What is Nature?” To me, that was one of our most engaging, interactive and passionate discussions. I enjoyed listening to all the different view points and found myself changing my own perspectives throughout the discussion. The question is a vague and difficult one, but I think it put us on the right track: it founded a place for our minds to build from when we read, analyzed and wrote our own nature pieces.
Class discussion was one of my favorite elements of this course, however I thoroughly enjoyed our field trips, guest speakers, and blog entries. As someone who admires activism, and plans on getting out in the field and doing volunteer work (which I never find the time to do) I was grateful that this class got me out there. The farm was fun, educational and it felt good to be out in the cold with my classmates. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be able to attend a school like Chatham and be involved in everything it offers. And although it was a “rough” morning for many, as well as a rainy one, I was happy and proud to be at the Nine Mile Run Watershed cleaning up crap and planting more trees. I think as citizens we should all be doing that regularly(there should be some sort of tax incentive for work like that-not that I care about the money, but I think it would get more people out there.) Another highlight for me was the guest speakers. Although very different people and writers, Nancy Gift and Jimmy Santiago Baca opened my eyes up to yet another level. Nancy taught me that it’s okay to just write down stories, to go back and make them environmentally educational, and to love weeds! Jimmy shook my mind and encouraged me to write with a level of emotion that I often stifle. His words and wisdom reminded me of the power of language, and the advantage we, as writers, have by using it.
I have to say that I now hold a special place in my (nature) heart for Mary Oliver, Janisse Ray, Edward Abbey, and Gretel Ehrlich. Although not a poet, Oliver’s writing reminded me of the power of simplicity and color. Ray showed me the skill of weaving the environmental with the personal, and Abbey and Ehrlich made me want to travel to the West in order to see the land as beautifully as they describe it, believing that I, too, could discover such serenity.
I find myself often getting caught up in description when it comes to my nature writing. I like how this course has taught me to utilize scene, dialogue and meaningful reflection to speak to somewhere much further beyond my own mind. I wish I could have taken this class earlier in my time here at Chatham. I feel it has taught me to take my writing to the next level when it comes to merging literature with nature. The blogging has heightened my awareness of my intimate surroundings. Although I sometimes had a hard time seeing my spot with “fresh” eyes, I like how it forced me to observe. As a result, I discovered what was hiding underneath the surface. I now have a deeper relationship with the things I describe, and I hope to incorporate that “light” into all my writing.
Although it was complicated and we often found ourselves back where we started, I will never forget our first class discussion concerning “What is Nature?” To me, that was one of our most engaging, interactive and passionate discussions. I enjoyed listening to all the different view points and found myself changing my own perspectives throughout the discussion. The question is a vague and difficult one, but I think it put us on the right track: it founded a place for our minds to build from when we read, analyzed and wrote our own nature pieces.
Class discussion was one of my favorite elements of this course, however I thoroughly enjoyed our field trips, guest speakers, and blog entries. As someone who admires activism, and plans on getting out in the field and doing volunteer work (which I never find the time to do) I was grateful that this class got me out there. The farm was fun, educational and it felt good to be out in the cold with my classmates. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be able to attend a school like Chatham and be involved in everything it offers. And although it was a “rough” morning for many, as well as a rainy one, I was happy and proud to be at the Nine Mile Run Watershed cleaning up crap and planting more trees. I think as citizens we should all be doing that regularly(there should be some sort of tax incentive for work like that-not that I care about the money, but I think it would get more people out there.) Another highlight for me was the guest speakers. Although very different people and writers, Nancy Gift and Jimmy Santiago Baca opened my eyes up to yet another level. Nancy taught me that it’s okay to just write down stories, to go back and make them environmentally educational, and to love weeds! Jimmy shook my mind and encouraged me to write with a level of emotion that I often stifle. His words and wisdom reminded me of the power of language, and the advantage we, as writers, have by using it.
I have to say that I now hold a special place in my (nature) heart for Mary Oliver, Janisse Ray, Edward Abbey, and Gretel Ehrlich. Although not a poet, Oliver’s writing reminded me of the power of simplicity and color. Ray showed me the skill of weaving the environmental with the personal, and Abbey and Ehrlich made me want to travel to the West in order to see the land as beautifully as they describe it, believing that I, too, could discover such serenity.
I find myself often getting caught up in description when it comes to my nature writing. I like how this course has taught me to utilize scene, dialogue and meaningful reflection to speak to somewhere much further beyond my own mind. I wish I could have taken this class earlier in my time here at Chatham. I feel it has taught me to take my writing to the next level when it comes to merging literature with nature. The blogging has heightened my awareness of my intimate surroundings. Although I sometimes had a hard time seeing my spot with “fresh” eyes, I like how it forced me to observe. As a result, I discovered what was hiding underneath the surface. I now have a deeper relationship with the things I describe, and I hope to incorporate that “light” into all my writing.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Response to Jimmy Santiago Baca
Jimmy Santiago Baca moves me, as a writer, a poet, and a person. I realized this the moment I started reading his memoir, “A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet.” I know that a lot of what drives his prose is the events in his life themselves, which fuel his writing with extreme experiences and emotions, but I do think it is more than that. It feels like his language and his words are treated like presents on Christmas day, formed with the utmost amount of energy and excitement possible. He learned to read and write in his 20’s, and I think that played a huge role in the writer he is today. It’s as though every time he sits down to write a word, he magnifies each one with the delight you feel when learning your first word. He is blessed with a fresh perspective of language, a language that saved him while he was in jail, a language that “ordinary” people take for granted.
Baca’s powerful story is told through strong, crisp sentences. Each word feels painstakingly chosen in order to achieve the strongest, most efficient effect. I admire how his voice is relayed almost simultaneously through the child Baca and the adult Baca, especially when he visits his father in prison as a 5-yr.old: “I wanted to tell her not to leave Father in there. I feared he might be hurt or be swallowed up by the darkness, and we would never see him again. The green painted bars, the guards with guns and keys and surly attitudes, the caked grime on the walls and floor, the unshaven men with no teeth and swollen red eyes and scratched faces—these filled me with terror (2).” He takes the details that only an adult would recognize and conveys them through a child’s image. I believe he is very successful at this.
Baca also succeeds in writing through a genuine voice. His life was extremely difficult and instead of harping on the awful experiences themselves, he takes a deep hard look into the mind of this growing child. At times, I wanted to grab the little boy in the pages and rescue him from his life, bring him home and hold him in my arms. I felt his anguish and fear and misfortune, without his words asking for sympathy.
As I read more, delving further into Baca’s life, I was interested to see his language and metaphors becoming more complex and deep, and beautiful. It is as though he takes us on the journey of learning language, of taking it to higher and deeper realms(making his book yet another metaphor for learning language.) I was swept away to a tiny irrelevant place outside Baca’s jail cell, taken further into his brain while focusing on something as tiny as a blade of grass: “I gazed out my window at the swatch of oily grass hugging the base of a telephone pole. I wondered how the grass survived, wondered what it felt when the sun entered its pores and fed it the glowing food that made it grow…I closed my eyes and, for hours, focused strictly on the grass at the utility pole base, and I felt my soul grafting with the grass blades (238).”
Baca claims he is a poet, even though his prose is wonderful. But after reading his poetry, I see why he considers himself a poet. Reading Baca’s poems made me want to write poetry. I don’t write much poetry, mainly because I don’t feel as comfortable in that form and because I fear that I will not succeed in the way I do with prose. But, Baca encourages me to take the most important, meaningful and powerful words in a sentence and make them erupt from the page, into a poem. His verb choices are vivid and active, fueled with life and charge--in “El Sapo” he writes
Their souls cracked in attics,
in picture frames,
in family trunks. These
people afraid of his humanity,
hummed with warm-motor hearts,
blood pulsed colored blinking lights,
whose days were constant tapes and ribbons
of information
A man like Sapo,
short-circuited their heaven,
his root-charged blood darkened their ivory nails and cracked
their glass flowers (92).
His poetry is infused with metaphor and simile, comparisons that bring together the smallest details of life with the largest ideas that marinate in the mind: “Conversations in her kitchen / about my mother I overheard as a boy / made me sniff around the screen door to hear more / like a coyote smells a cave he had been born in once(15).” He fills his poems with a balance of metaphor, dialogue, detail and reflection. In this way, it is a though each poem tells a story about life, or death or some place in between where his dreams are constantly waiting, often behind cell bars.
Baca’s powerful story is told through strong, crisp sentences. Each word feels painstakingly chosen in order to achieve the strongest, most efficient effect. I admire how his voice is relayed almost simultaneously through the child Baca and the adult Baca, especially when he visits his father in prison as a 5-yr.old: “I wanted to tell her not to leave Father in there. I feared he might be hurt or be swallowed up by the darkness, and we would never see him again. The green painted bars, the guards with guns and keys and surly attitudes, the caked grime on the walls and floor, the unshaven men with no teeth and swollen red eyes and scratched faces—these filled me with terror (2).” He takes the details that only an adult would recognize and conveys them through a child’s image. I believe he is very successful at this.
Baca also succeeds in writing through a genuine voice. His life was extremely difficult and instead of harping on the awful experiences themselves, he takes a deep hard look into the mind of this growing child. At times, I wanted to grab the little boy in the pages and rescue him from his life, bring him home and hold him in my arms. I felt his anguish and fear and misfortune, without his words asking for sympathy.
As I read more, delving further into Baca’s life, I was interested to see his language and metaphors becoming more complex and deep, and beautiful. It is as though he takes us on the journey of learning language, of taking it to higher and deeper realms(making his book yet another metaphor for learning language.) I was swept away to a tiny irrelevant place outside Baca’s jail cell, taken further into his brain while focusing on something as tiny as a blade of grass: “I gazed out my window at the swatch of oily grass hugging the base of a telephone pole. I wondered how the grass survived, wondered what it felt when the sun entered its pores and fed it the glowing food that made it grow…I closed my eyes and, for hours, focused strictly on the grass at the utility pole base, and I felt my soul grafting with the grass blades (238).”
Baca claims he is a poet, even though his prose is wonderful. But after reading his poetry, I see why he considers himself a poet. Reading Baca’s poems made me want to write poetry. I don’t write much poetry, mainly because I don’t feel as comfortable in that form and because I fear that I will not succeed in the way I do with prose. But, Baca encourages me to take the most important, meaningful and powerful words in a sentence and make them erupt from the page, into a poem. His verb choices are vivid and active, fueled with life and charge--in “El Sapo” he writes
Their souls cracked in attics,
in picture frames,
in family trunks. These
people afraid of his humanity,
hummed with warm-motor hearts,
blood pulsed colored blinking lights,
whose days were constant tapes and ribbons
of information
A man like Sapo,
short-circuited their heaven,
his root-charged blood darkened their ivory nails and cracked
their glass flowers (92).
His poetry is infused with metaphor and simile, comparisons that bring together the smallest details of life with the largest ideas that marinate in the mind: “Conversations in her kitchen / about my mother I overheard as a boy / made me sniff around the screen door to hear more / like a coyote smells a cave he had been born in once(15).” He fills his poems with a balance of metaphor, dialogue, detail and reflection. In this way, it is a though each poem tells a story about life, or death or some place in between where his dreams are constantly waiting, often behind cell bars.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Nature Blog #10: City Creatures
Saturday, November 14, 2009
12:30pm
I came out onto my balcony to get warm. It’s mid-November, but I find myself warmer outside than in my apartment. The sun glares at the empty trees, coating their bare branches and twigs in a weekend glow. Below the ground is a carpet of dead leaves. I can hear every step and move of two squirrels, scurrying and scampering about beneath the flora. It sounds like deer trekking through the woods, but it is just squirrels in a clump of city trees.
A cool air still blows against my cheek, chilling the right side of my face while the sun warms my left. Opposite sensations against the same skin, like dipping cold toes in a warm bath. The birds are loud today. They woke me up early this morning, disorienting my body into thinking it was spring. A blue jay lands on the branch of my honey locust. I can see the black streak under his eye, darting as fast as his eye does at movement. He doesn’t stay there long. A noise, the flick of a branch, and he is off to a new destination.
A motorcycle chugs on Penn Ave. Its throttle blends in with an airplane high above. The sound of metal banging against a rusty barrel echoes through the open trees. All sounds cave in around me, speaking monosyllabic sounds of city language, busy words. Sitting out here on my balcony, so in touch with the trees and leaves and birds that surround me, I feel teased by their natural serenity. I want to go away from all the other distracting noise, away from my railing shadows and the telephone wire that hangs to my right. I’ve been writing like this is my past few blogs, wanting to escape to a quiet wooden den. I realize that I need that regularly. I need the chance to hear nothing but birds calling in the sunlight, trees rustling ever so gently in the afternoon’s breeze, creatures wrestling in the forest floor’s leaves. When I sit and observe the natural world that surrounds me, I slow down enough to want more. I remember the calming effect it has on my mind, the lackadaisical and meditative encouragement.
It’s like finding another world within a world, one that is at time the complete opposite of schedules and clocks, cars and the evening news. It is always there, though. Whether hiding behind a dark cloudy day, or coming out full force like today in the sun.
A family of birds, I cannot see them, sits in the top of my pine. The pine has lost all of its leaves except for at the very top; it looks like a small Christmas tree hanging in the clear blue sky. It sounds like there are hundreds of them up there, chitchatting like women at a coffee shop. One flies out and one flies in, hiding their bodies completely from me. All I can tell of their movement is from the shake and shuffles of the pine needles’ edges. It seems as though they are quite aware of this abnormally warm November day. They are fine just chirping in the branches, having found a place to hide from the city ruckus. I’m encouraged to follow their lead.
12:30pm
I came out onto my balcony to get warm. It’s mid-November, but I find myself warmer outside than in my apartment. The sun glares at the empty trees, coating their bare branches and twigs in a weekend glow. Below the ground is a carpet of dead leaves. I can hear every step and move of two squirrels, scurrying and scampering about beneath the flora. It sounds like deer trekking through the woods, but it is just squirrels in a clump of city trees.
A cool air still blows against my cheek, chilling the right side of my face while the sun warms my left. Opposite sensations against the same skin, like dipping cold toes in a warm bath. The birds are loud today. They woke me up early this morning, disorienting my body into thinking it was spring. A blue jay lands on the branch of my honey locust. I can see the black streak under his eye, darting as fast as his eye does at movement. He doesn’t stay there long. A noise, the flick of a branch, and he is off to a new destination.
A motorcycle chugs on Penn Ave. Its throttle blends in with an airplane high above. The sound of metal banging against a rusty barrel echoes through the open trees. All sounds cave in around me, speaking monosyllabic sounds of city language, busy words. Sitting out here on my balcony, so in touch with the trees and leaves and birds that surround me, I feel teased by their natural serenity. I want to go away from all the other distracting noise, away from my railing shadows and the telephone wire that hangs to my right. I’ve been writing like this is my past few blogs, wanting to escape to a quiet wooden den. I realize that I need that regularly. I need the chance to hear nothing but birds calling in the sunlight, trees rustling ever so gently in the afternoon’s breeze, creatures wrestling in the forest floor’s leaves. When I sit and observe the natural world that surrounds me, I slow down enough to want more. I remember the calming effect it has on my mind, the lackadaisical and meditative encouragement.
It’s like finding another world within a world, one that is at time the complete opposite of schedules and clocks, cars and the evening news. It is always there, though. Whether hiding behind a dark cloudy day, or coming out full force like today in the sun.
A family of birds, I cannot see them, sits in the top of my pine. The pine has lost all of its leaves except for at the very top; it looks like a small Christmas tree hanging in the clear blue sky. It sounds like there are hundreds of them up there, chitchatting like women at a coffee shop. One flies out and one flies in, hiding their bodies completely from me. All I can tell of their movement is from the shake and shuffles of the pine needles’ edges. It seems as though they are quite aware of this abnormally warm November day. They are fine just chirping in the branches, having found a place to hide from the city ruckus. I’m encouraged to follow their lead.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
PA Natural Gas Drilling: Yay or Nay?
Last week, I was listening to NPR while driving home from school, and caught the end of an interview. This interview was with an agricultural specialist and he was discussing, at the time I listened in, the natural gas drilling. As someone who likes to be educated about things that are being done to improve our current environmental situation, my ears perked up.
Later I asked my husband about the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. As a sustainability professional, he was able to break down for me the seemingly wonderful alternative of drilling natural gas, thus lessening our dependence on oil.
Although this does not pertain solely to Pittsburgh, the right to drill natural gas in the Marcellus Shale was just passed by Governor Randall, and applies to all of Pennsylvania. In order to balance the PA monthly budget, Governor Randall agreed to Marcellus Shale drilling in PA. At first glance, he had good reason to. On a positive note, natural gas produces much less CO2 than other forms of energy per amount of energy produced, not to mention, like I said, it balanced our budget.
But, what is it about this natural gas drilling that has educated and specialized professionals such as my husband worried? Why do they think this is a disaster in the making?
The Marcellus Shale is “a Middle Devonian-age black, low density, carbonaceous (organic rich) shale that occurs in the subsurface beneath much of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.” In as recent as 2008 it was estimated that the Marcellus Shale contained over 500 million cubic feet of natural gas. This amount of energy could potentially provide for the entire U.S. for two years, and be worth close to a trillion dollars.
We’ve struck gold!
Taken at face value, it seems this process is too good to be true. In reality, it is just that. In order to extract this natural gas from the shale that sits 1 mile below the ground, “fracking” chemicals are added to millions of gallons of water that is pumped at high pressures, deep into the rock, in order to push out the natural gas. The problems with this process of extraction are many fold. Firstly, current law regulations do not require that the drilling companies report the “fracking” chemicals being used, so no one knows what is going into our groundwater. The millions of gallons of water that are used become contaminated and unusable. Where is all this water going to go? And, how is it going to be treated if its contaminants are unknown? Second, in order to get to the gas, they have to drill extremely deep. In doing so, the water is exposed to radioactive material. Third, by drilling, they are going to mess up the groundwater and aquifer systems and contaminate or dry up streams, creeks, and wells.
With this knowledge at hand, it is quite possible that the environmental cost of this drilling will by far outweigh the economic and carbon-saving benefits that are anticipated.
We currently fight wars for oil. Next it will be wars for water. (And, they already have begun.) We might want to think twice about ruining something that is going to be worth its weight in gold in our near future.
*I feel like the “bones” for an environmental argument may be here. But just in the little time it took me to do some research, talk to my husband and format this blog, I realize how complicated writing about environmental issues can be. In order to write a successful argument, I feel a lot of research needs to be done. There are constant battling forces between every argument and to complete a successful essay, both sides should, at least, be recognized. I also notice that as soon as I start conveying facts or arguments, I lose a lyricism or language to my writing. I think it will take time and practice to merge the two together; a patience I intend to welcome as I spread my writing wings.*
Later I asked my husband about the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. As a sustainability professional, he was able to break down for me the seemingly wonderful alternative of drilling natural gas, thus lessening our dependence on oil.
Although this does not pertain solely to Pittsburgh, the right to drill natural gas in the Marcellus Shale was just passed by Governor Randall, and applies to all of Pennsylvania. In order to balance the PA monthly budget, Governor Randall agreed to Marcellus Shale drilling in PA. At first glance, he had good reason to. On a positive note, natural gas produces much less CO2 than other forms of energy per amount of energy produced, not to mention, like I said, it balanced our budget.
But, what is it about this natural gas drilling that has educated and specialized professionals such as my husband worried? Why do they think this is a disaster in the making?
The Marcellus Shale is “a Middle Devonian-age black, low density, carbonaceous (organic rich) shale that occurs in the subsurface beneath much of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.” In as recent as 2008 it was estimated that the Marcellus Shale contained over 500 million cubic feet of natural gas. This amount of energy could potentially provide for the entire U.S. for two years, and be worth close to a trillion dollars.
We’ve struck gold!
Taken at face value, it seems this process is too good to be true. In reality, it is just that. In order to extract this natural gas from the shale that sits 1 mile below the ground, “fracking” chemicals are added to millions of gallons of water that is pumped at high pressures, deep into the rock, in order to push out the natural gas. The problems with this process of extraction are many fold. Firstly, current law regulations do not require that the drilling companies report the “fracking” chemicals being used, so no one knows what is going into our groundwater. The millions of gallons of water that are used become contaminated and unusable. Where is all this water going to go? And, how is it going to be treated if its contaminants are unknown? Second, in order to get to the gas, they have to drill extremely deep. In doing so, the water is exposed to radioactive material. Third, by drilling, they are going to mess up the groundwater and aquifer systems and contaminate or dry up streams, creeks, and wells.
With this knowledge at hand, it is quite possible that the environmental cost of this drilling will by far outweigh the economic and carbon-saving benefits that are anticipated.
We currently fight wars for oil. Next it will be wars for water. (And, they already have begun.) We might want to think twice about ruining something that is going to be worth its weight in gold in our near future.
*I feel like the “bones” for an environmental argument may be here. But just in the little time it took me to do some research, talk to my husband and format this blog, I realize how complicated writing about environmental issues can be. In order to write a successful argument, I feel a lot of research needs to be done. There are constant battling forces between every argument and to complete a successful essay, both sides should, at least, be recognized. I also notice that as soon as I start conveying facts or arguments, I lose a lyricism or language to my writing. I think it will take time and practice to merge the two together; a patience I intend to welcome as I spread my writing wings.*
Nature Blog #9: Turning Gray
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
2:30pm
Today is gray. Gray skies, gray light, gray air. It feels like the end of something. I hear a dishwasher, cars, and a bus station's mechanical rings in the distant. They accompany the gray perfectly. The leaves of my honey locust are now dried amber flakes on the ground. One of its branches has snapped; I can see that now with the leaves all gone. I wonder how it snapped. It seems recent, but I can’t remember any storms. Broken in two places, it’s holding on by mere splinters.
I feel vulnerable sitting up here on my balcony, no longer shielded by the lush foliage that once filled my locusts, oak, and pine. The brightness that used to surround me is now dimmed and layers the ground below, a soft orange still catching my eye. Instead, today, I am surrounded by work. Reading, writing, commenting, creating…I wish they would comfort me like these trees once did. Instead I am opening a little more to the world. Letting my words reveal parts of my life, parts holding tightly inside like the breaking branch to its roots. It is overwhelming to reach such places in writing; it feels like I’ve just spent the last 24 hours in therapy. Questioning my internal thoughts, analyzing my answers, searching, seeking, standing strong. I am tired.
The last of the dying leaves shimmy down through the branches. I can hear them rustle to the ground. I think they are squirrels at first. Look to my right. They are just leaves. Delicate enough to crumple in a fist, light enough to be taken by the wind.
I used to think trees were ugly when they lost all their leaves. But as I’ve gotten older I appreciate the bareness they reveal. I like to look deep into their cracks and crevices, pointing out lines that turn so beautifully, it’s hard to imagine they're natural. Without flames of disguising leaves covering up these trunks, I see the tree for what it truly is, its real form, its insides, its core.
It could be any time of day. The sun is not out to shine its biological clock. The volume of cars and the lack of filled parking spaces is the only thing that tells me the hour, without looking at my watch. If I were out in the middle of the woods, I don’t think I’d care the time. I’d wait for the darkness to roll in, search for the last gray light, and follow the bare trees home.
2:30pm
Today is gray. Gray skies, gray light, gray air. It feels like the end of something. I hear a dishwasher, cars, and a bus station's mechanical rings in the distant. They accompany the gray perfectly. The leaves of my honey locust are now dried amber flakes on the ground. One of its branches has snapped; I can see that now with the leaves all gone. I wonder how it snapped. It seems recent, but I can’t remember any storms. Broken in two places, it’s holding on by mere splinters.
I feel vulnerable sitting up here on my balcony, no longer shielded by the lush foliage that once filled my locusts, oak, and pine. The brightness that used to surround me is now dimmed and layers the ground below, a soft orange still catching my eye. Instead, today, I am surrounded by work. Reading, writing, commenting, creating…I wish they would comfort me like these trees once did. Instead I am opening a little more to the world. Letting my words reveal parts of my life, parts holding tightly inside like the breaking branch to its roots. It is overwhelming to reach such places in writing; it feels like I’ve just spent the last 24 hours in therapy. Questioning my internal thoughts, analyzing my answers, searching, seeking, standing strong. I am tired.
The last of the dying leaves shimmy down through the branches. I can hear them rustle to the ground. I think they are squirrels at first. Look to my right. They are just leaves. Delicate enough to crumple in a fist, light enough to be taken by the wind.
I used to think trees were ugly when they lost all their leaves. But as I’ve gotten older I appreciate the bareness they reveal. I like to look deep into their cracks and crevices, pointing out lines that turn so beautifully, it’s hard to imagine they're natural. Without flames of disguising leaves covering up these trunks, I see the tree for what it truly is, its real form, its insides, its core.
It could be any time of day. The sun is not out to shine its biological clock. The volume of cars and the lack of filled parking spaces is the only thing that tells me the hour, without looking at my watch. If I were out in the middle of the woods, I don’t think I’d care the time. I’d wait for the darkness to roll in, search for the last gray light, and follow the bare trees home.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Ehrlich's A Solace of Open Spaces
Ehrlich’s “The Solace of Open Spaces” has opened my eyes (and mind) to a western world. It is a world I want to visit, a landscape I want to walk. Most of all, as a writer, this book has shown me how to take a place and make it more powerful than imagined by connecting it to humankind.
The first essay “The Solace of Open Spaces,” which is also the title of the book, was one of my favorites. I think this is because it is full of material. Themes of space, solitude and longing are introduced, and reflect the book as a whole. For me, the first essay was representative of the entire book. It provided insight and reflection, as well as facts and beautiful language. Ehrlich is a lyric and poetic writer. Each essay focuses on a different aspect of her experience living in Wyoming, yet she always dig deeper for an internal experience. I admire her ability to connect the land with the people and culture. And even more so, I hope that one day I can reveal an internal and external landscape as well as she does.
After heading out to Wyoming to shoot a film on ranchers, Ehrlich ends up staying there for 17 years. Her connection with the land is strong. And even though she was not born there, it is as though the rivers and roads of this state run as deep as her own veins. In the essay “The Solace of Open Spaces” she connects the harsh, dry, open land with the pride of its inhabitants: “People here still feel pride because they live in such a harsh place, part of the glamorous cowboy past, and they are determined not to be the victims of a mining-dominated future(3).” I find it interesting that Ehrlich describes this link with the “cowboy,” the rugged western expansionist. It just proves that she observes the landscape and its dwellers very intently, enough to try and analyze their personalities.
I find Ehrlich is very deep in that way, even though she often uses simple language. The land becomes a place for her to start fresh after the death of a loved one: “…life on the sheep ranch woke me up…I threw away my clothes; I cut my hair. The arid country was a clean slate. Its absolute indifference steadied me (4).” She even draws connections between the land and the language. The solitary lifestyle of westerners induces a quietness in them. She believes they have their own language, “shortened to the skin and bones of a thought,” compressed and dry just like the land. She even compares the clayey soil of the land in Wyoming to the “fillers” of American life. Her comments on materialism are strengthened by her ability to evoke the land. She can talk about something tangible, something beautiful and find a way to relate it to the human condition.
One of my other favorite essays was “Other Lives.” For me, this was her meditation on death. This chapter is full of examples where she examines the idea of inner vs. outer nature. In describing the frost on the ground, iron ore, the Wyoming sky and animal carcasses, she reveals her pain. The grief she feels while losing a lover is woven into the landscape, rooted in the earth as though it was meant to be.
She is very successful at using characters to reveal the culture of Wyoming. In her essay “Obituary” Ehrlich introduces character after character that she meets along the way. Each one is a unique individual, always with something interesting to say. Her point about language is confirmed in this chapter: their short concise sentences reveal themselves as well as the land and culture. Cliff says “Gretel, when you’re looking at me you’re looking at country (20).” In most of her other essays, the landscapes becomes the characters, and the wind and weather its words.
Although I loved the entire book, and think it should be read by all nature writers (and writers in general), I am excited to focus on the first essay in class. This essay showcases all of Ehrlich’s talents and in a few short pages introduces its readers to an unknown world that somehow seems familiar. It is because she connects emotion, pain, longing, and love to a landscape. Emotions all humans feel, ones we can all understand. In turn she connects us to this place, this beautiful massive space she calls home.
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I have a hard time finding connections between the landscape of my hometown and its culture. I grew up in Carlisle, a small provincial town in central PA. Although surrounded by countryside and farmland, it is a quaint town that survives because of a liberal arts college and an Army War College, or military base. For me this town was a mixture of different people. There was the liberal academics that populated the college community, the conservative country dwellers that ran dairy farms and attended the annual car shows, and the temporary military families that came and went every year. As the daughter of a professor who worked at the college, the culture ingrained in me came from books and dinner discussions and travel. Most of my friends were born and raised Carlislians with parents who went to Carlisle High School. The town is enclosed by North and South Mountain, boundaries that mark this small historic place. As a child and teenager I spent my weekends hiking the woods of these mountains or staying out past curfew in parking lots of gas stations. I guess you could say as a result I sometimes feel torn, by the stimulation of city (or town) life and the serenity of mountains and countryside. North and South Mountain always made me feel stuck, like I could not get away from this town. Maybe that is why I traveled and lived overseas as I grew older, maybe that is why I live in a city now. But when I lay my head down at night, I find myself wanting to be back in those mountains of Carlisle, deep in its familiar woods.
The first essay “The Solace of Open Spaces,” which is also the title of the book, was one of my favorites. I think this is because it is full of material. Themes of space, solitude and longing are introduced, and reflect the book as a whole. For me, the first essay was representative of the entire book. It provided insight and reflection, as well as facts and beautiful language. Ehrlich is a lyric and poetic writer. Each essay focuses on a different aspect of her experience living in Wyoming, yet she always dig deeper for an internal experience. I admire her ability to connect the land with the people and culture. And even more so, I hope that one day I can reveal an internal and external landscape as well as she does.
After heading out to Wyoming to shoot a film on ranchers, Ehrlich ends up staying there for 17 years. Her connection with the land is strong. And even though she was not born there, it is as though the rivers and roads of this state run as deep as her own veins. In the essay “The Solace of Open Spaces” she connects the harsh, dry, open land with the pride of its inhabitants: “People here still feel pride because they live in such a harsh place, part of the glamorous cowboy past, and they are determined not to be the victims of a mining-dominated future(3).” I find it interesting that Ehrlich describes this link with the “cowboy,” the rugged western expansionist. It just proves that she observes the landscape and its dwellers very intently, enough to try and analyze their personalities.
I find Ehrlich is very deep in that way, even though she often uses simple language. The land becomes a place for her to start fresh after the death of a loved one: “…life on the sheep ranch woke me up…I threw away my clothes; I cut my hair. The arid country was a clean slate. Its absolute indifference steadied me (4).” She even draws connections between the land and the language. The solitary lifestyle of westerners induces a quietness in them. She believes they have their own language, “shortened to the skin and bones of a thought,” compressed and dry just like the land. She even compares the clayey soil of the land in Wyoming to the “fillers” of American life. Her comments on materialism are strengthened by her ability to evoke the land. She can talk about something tangible, something beautiful and find a way to relate it to the human condition.
One of my other favorite essays was “Other Lives.” For me, this was her meditation on death. This chapter is full of examples where she examines the idea of inner vs. outer nature. In describing the frost on the ground, iron ore, the Wyoming sky and animal carcasses, she reveals her pain. The grief she feels while losing a lover is woven into the landscape, rooted in the earth as though it was meant to be.
She is very successful at using characters to reveal the culture of Wyoming. In her essay “Obituary” Ehrlich introduces character after character that she meets along the way. Each one is a unique individual, always with something interesting to say. Her point about language is confirmed in this chapter: their short concise sentences reveal themselves as well as the land and culture. Cliff says “Gretel, when you’re looking at me you’re looking at country (20).” In most of her other essays, the landscapes becomes the characters, and the wind and weather its words.
Although I loved the entire book, and think it should be read by all nature writers (and writers in general), I am excited to focus on the first essay in class. This essay showcases all of Ehrlich’s talents and in a few short pages introduces its readers to an unknown world that somehow seems familiar. It is because she connects emotion, pain, longing, and love to a landscape. Emotions all humans feel, ones we can all understand. In turn she connects us to this place, this beautiful massive space she calls home.
-
I have a hard time finding connections between the landscape of my hometown and its culture. I grew up in Carlisle, a small provincial town in central PA. Although surrounded by countryside and farmland, it is a quaint town that survives because of a liberal arts college and an Army War College, or military base. For me this town was a mixture of different people. There was the liberal academics that populated the college community, the conservative country dwellers that ran dairy farms and attended the annual car shows, and the temporary military families that came and went every year. As the daughter of a professor who worked at the college, the culture ingrained in me came from books and dinner discussions and travel. Most of my friends were born and raised Carlislians with parents who went to Carlisle High School. The town is enclosed by North and South Mountain, boundaries that mark this small historic place. As a child and teenager I spent my weekends hiking the woods of these mountains or staying out past curfew in parking lots of gas stations. I guess you could say as a result I sometimes feel torn, by the stimulation of city (or town) life and the serenity of mountains and countryside. North and South Mountain always made me feel stuck, like I could not get away from this town. Maybe that is why I traveled and lived overseas as I grew older, maybe that is why I live in a city now. But when I lay my head down at night, I find myself wanting to be back in those mountains of Carlisle, deep in its familiar woods.
Nature Blog #8: Constants
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
10:00 am
A chilly wind blows the leaves of my honey locust. They bombard my balcony like a diagonal stream of rain. I sense their delicacy not only by how they fly, but by the way they land on my keyboard, shuffling at the slightest breeze. The dying leaves remind me of more cold to come. Of winter and snow and Pittsburgh’s dark grey streets. Today, the sun is peaking out of the clouds every few minutes, blasting streaks of warmth and brightness over my face and fingers. The land below me is covered in yellow leaves, leaves fallen from the honey locust and fir tree. Speckles of brown scatter throughout, reminding the yellow that it will soon be brown, that its color will soon be dead.
Sirens roar in the background. I can’t ignore the street noise and cars. Now that the leaves are falling, and the trees that once enveloped me in a quiet little corner are being stripped, the road is much more present. I can see through the few naked branches. I see trucks and cars, buses and bikers. Within weeks, the road has moved closer. Now that the trees are barer, I notice something I had never seen before. Many of the trees to the right of my balcony, the ones that acted as a wall between me and the street, are strangled by vines. Around the two honey locusts and an oak, skinny grey vines wrap tightly around their trunks, stretching into the branches like garland around a banister. I follow the vines down and see that they are coming from a large bush that canopies the ground. Underneath, it is like a hobbits den, domed in by vines and leaves. Like a fort, it reminds me of the places I used to play as a child with my sisters.
The air smells clean today. Clean like a field in the countryside after a frost. The smell reminds me of the farm I lived on when I was ten. In the mornings, my sisters and I would walk out past the pastures where the cows used to graze, and into the woods. There was moss coating the forest floor. The green would squeeze out moisture as we trudged through in sneakers. Skinny trees erupted out of the moss, breaking its soft padding and reaching high into the fall winds. Although I’m in the middle of a city, I’m amazed at how focusing on something as small as smell can take me back to a very different place and time. The sun, the wind, the foliage is always a constant for me. It seems to be what grounds me in the many different places I go. I am already noticing my relationship with my balcony changing. Since starting these blogs, my perspective of this concrete balcony is different. It has become so much more than just a place to relax, eat summer dinners, sit in the sun and read. It holds memories. Sitting and observing the details around me, I am much more aware of my surroundings. I notice every bird that lands on the trees, I notice every squirrel that scurries along the gutter, I watch for my groundhogs to see what they are doing. I scan the familiar horizon and notice how it changes every week. These small observations are becoming windows into my past, glimpses into my memories. The leaves are losing their luster and charm, but I am only gaining.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Nature Blog #7: Pumpkins
Monday, October 26th, 2009
3:45pm
When I walked out onto my balcony this morning, a layer of dry withered leaves covered the cement floor. Blown into corners and vulnerable to flight, these leaves were the remnants of my surrounding trees. The honey locust in front still glows with fluttering amber, but I am starting to see its naked limbs jutting out into the open blue sky. I watch the leaves shimmy over the cement floor; their delicate outlines quiver at the lightest breeze. Today, the light is warm and bright. The sun has been out all day, balanced with a fall wind that keeps my ankles chilled and my fingertips dry. I notice that when I spend time out on my balcony during the afternoon, I feel more alone. Rush hour has not yet arrived and most people are sitting in offices, watching the second hand. It’s not that I am lonely, but rather I feel like I am the only one who is enjoying this light at this time of the day. It casts a glow above the dead leaves at my toes, shadowing the vertical bars of the balcony. I feel safe enclosed in their lines.
I bought a few pumpkins at the Bloomfield Farmer’s Market last week. I put two on the table where I am typing. A medium-sized symmetrically round pumpkin with a tall stalk that twists up like old vines accompanies a smaller flatter cream-colored pumpkin with orange crevices and extruding round creases. My husband always makes fun of me for buying pumpkins every year. We don’t have a nice front porch to display them on, or even young kids that get kicks out of carving them. But it is something more than decorative for me. Since I was a child, I have always loved pumpkins: the way they look all bunched together, bleeding their orange-ness into one another, taking hay rides to the countryside’s patches and sorting through vines to get the perfect one, pulling out their slimy seeds with my sisters and baking them with salt, watching my dad take a knife to their flesh where he’d cut out their triangular eyes and sharp-toothed mouths. As a child, they were one of my favorite holiday props, completing the lure of fall festivities with squash soup and caramel apples, candy corn and Halloween.
Now that I’m older, I am much more aware of why and how I buy pumpkins. I’ve learned that the pumpkin industry is not necessarily good for the environment. Our consumer driven society has heightened the demand for pumpkins in order to fulfill that “fall festivity” I marveled at as a child. As a result, thousands of pumpkins are sold during the fall months, used for 1-8 weeks as decoration, and then dumped in a landfill where they take ages to decompose. In order to benefit most from pumpkins, I’ve learned that instead of dumping the pumpkins in the trash after the holiday, it is best to eat the insides (pumpkin soup and baked seeds), and/or plant the gourd under a lawn or garden. The rooting nutrients are very beneficial and healthy for the soil.
I read an article recently that suggested using pumpkins to clean up soil contaminated with DDT. Phytoremediation is the term used to describe plants that clean up contaminated soil (just like the brown field sites in Pittsburgh that are being cleaned up with sunflowers.) Canadian scientists found that pumpkins “sucked” up the most DDT and in some cases, PCB’s as well. It made me feel better about my love of pumpkins and my need to have them to look at, eat and carve every October.
The light has shifted slightly as I sit out here on my balcony. My thoughts of pumpkins and the environment have diverted me from watching the small world around me. Though smells of burning brush and drying pine fill my senses, I must go inside to warm my body and mind. Fall will still be here tomorrow.
Response to Nature Poetry
I had a hard time choosing the most “successful" poem because I felt that a lot of these poems were successful. But if I had to choose, I would say that the two that stood out to me most were James Wright’s “A Blessing” and St.Germain’s “Why I Went into the Jungle.” In “A Blessing,” Wright appeals to me because of his simple language. Although he creates more complex, beautiful images like “bow shyly as wet swans” or “delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist” he maintains accessibility throughout the poem. I was pulled in because an event takes place. Wright describes the narrator and a friend walking into a pasture, an action that leads us to the ponies. Here he reveals an intimate moment with one of them, allowing the reader to take this journey with him. This buildup allows the reader to believe and feel the epiphanic moment the narrator has at the end: “Suddenly I realize / That if I stepped out of my body I would break / Into blossom.” Similarly, I felt St. Germain succeeds with simple language. Yet her language is strengthened by the mood or tone she sets. The poem is an answer to a “Why” question and I think that appeals to any reader…everyone wants to know why. This poem lured me in because of its cadence, as well. By strategically breaking lines, she creates a rhythm that when read out loud reflects an inner emotional discovery the narrator feels in the jungle. Whether the reader has been in the jungle or not, she takes one there through intense emotion.
I find it very difficult to know a poet’s true intention when sitting down to write a poem. However, it is by recognizing their approaches that I can begin to understand what they are, at least, trying to do:
For Pattiann Rogers, it seems her approach is to set up a hypothetical. She obtains this by using sensual imagery that is full of a lot of energy and passion.
Wright’s approach is simpler. He tells of an action that the narrator takes, a simple yet meditative action that in the end, reveals some epiphany or revelation.
Merwin’s approach seems more old fashioned, reminding me of Wordsworth or Shelly. He uses repetition to reveal the act of logging everyday, and the mundane physical labor. Although he never actually says “tree” it is through the concept of shadows that he reveals his point, an environmental one.
I appreciate Maurice Guevera’s more conversational tone. His approach stood out not only because his subject was different than the other selected poems, but he tells an emotional story in order to move the reader.
Lucille Clifton’s approach seemed the most experimental (or unique) to me. She empowers this poem by writing out her dialect. Although at first glance, the ideas or images seem common and easily overlooked, her language holds the weight of what she’s saying. Through her dialect she reveals her culture, past, and sense of place.
Galway Kinnel reminds me of Wright in how he approaches a poem: by telling an event or action that took place, bringing together the human and non-human world. For me, Kinnel empowers his poem through his imagery.
Laurie Kutchin’s poem “Walk in Tick Season" challenged my relationship with the non-human world most. Her approach of taking a simple and unpleasant creature such as tick and almost glorifying it to another level was impressive. I am someone who loves almost all creatures including spiders, snakes and insects. Or at least I am not bothered by some of the nastier ones. Yet I have no patience with ticks. They gross me out, freak me out, and the thought of them makes me itch all over. I make my husband take all the ticks off our dog after a hike in the woods because I don’t even want to touch them. I think that is why Kutchin intrigued me most. After reading this poem, I had a different view on ticks. I saw them as equal insects in the non-human world, “crawling as lightly as the morning breeze…carrying the grey-green blush of the sage.” I like how she genders this tick (maybe seeing it as a female affects my opinion) and connects her with me, the reader. She will fall from my skin after taking my blood, yet I feel happy to give it to her (though I think she most certainly will die) because I am then much more connected to her world… “her land pushed deeper into the blood of me.”
Sheryl St. Germain empowers and propels her poetry with emotions of longing, desire, and grief/pain. The rhythm of her poems seems extremely crucial in evoking the feeling at hand. For each poem, she focuses on one element of nature, whether it be a fish, a turkey vulture, a buck, or a tomato vine. Often, this element is taken to a deeper level through an intimate experience or interaction; this allows the narrator to reach a meaningful emotion. Her sensual language and strategic diction connects these non-human elements with the reader, a human who knows all emotions.
I find it very difficult to know a poet’s true intention when sitting down to write a poem. However, it is by recognizing their approaches that I can begin to understand what they are, at least, trying to do:
For Pattiann Rogers, it seems her approach is to set up a hypothetical. She obtains this by using sensual imagery that is full of a lot of energy and passion.
Wright’s approach is simpler. He tells of an action that the narrator takes, a simple yet meditative action that in the end, reveals some epiphany or revelation.
Merwin’s approach seems more old fashioned, reminding me of Wordsworth or Shelly. He uses repetition to reveal the act of logging everyday, and the mundane physical labor. Although he never actually says “tree” it is through the concept of shadows that he reveals his point, an environmental one.
I appreciate Maurice Guevera’s more conversational tone. His approach stood out not only because his subject was different than the other selected poems, but he tells an emotional story in order to move the reader.
Lucille Clifton’s approach seemed the most experimental (or unique) to me. She empowers this poem by writing out her dialect. Although at first glance, the ideas or images seem common and easily overlooked, her language holds the weight of what she’s saying. Through her dialect she reveals her culture, past, and sense of place.
Galway Kinnel reminds me of Wright in how he approaches a poem: by telling an event or action that took place, bringing together the human and non-human world. For me, Kinnel empowers his poem through his imagery.
Laurie Kutchin’s poem “Walk in Tick Season" challenged my relationship with the non-human world most. Her approach of taking a simple and unpleasant creature such as tick and almost glorifying it to another level was impressive. I am someone who loves almost all creatures including spiders, snakes and insects. Or at least I am not bothered by some of the nastier ones. Yet I have no patience with ticks. They gross me out, freak me out, and the thought of them makes me itch all over. I make my husband take all the ticks off our dog after a hike in the woods because I don’t even want to touch them. I think that is why Kutchin intrigued me most. After reading this poem, I had a different view on ticks. I saw them as equal insects in the non-human world, “crawling as lightly as the morning breeze…carrying the grey-green blush of the sage.” I like how she genders this tick (maybe seeing it as a female affects my opinion) and connects her with me, the reader. She will fall from my skin after taking my blood, yet I feel happy to give it to her (though I think she most certainly will die) because I am then much more connected to her world… “her land pushed deeper into the blood of me.”
Sheryl St. Germain empowers and propels her poetry with emotions of longing, desire, and grief/pain. The rhythm of her poems seems extremely crucial in evoking the feeling at hand. For each poem, she focuses on one element of nature, whether it be a fish, a turkey vulture, a buck, or a tomato vine. Often, this element is taken to a deeper level through an intimate experience or interaction; this allows the narrator to reach a meaningful emotion. Her sensual language and strategic diction connects these non-human elements with the reader, a human who knows all emotions.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Response to Mary Oliver's "Blue Iris"
I was excited to step into the world of nature poetry this week, as we have primarily focused so far on prose in this class. Although I do not consider myself a poet, and I spend most of my time reading prose, I find certain poets and poetry moves me to understand writing on a different level, an often deeper and riskier level. Oliver succeeded in challenging my writing mind, and offered me beautiful language and images that I am still thinking about now.
I feel this collection of poems is an extremely important and influential work that all nature writers should read. While reading this collection, I felt like I had become the flowers, plants and animals, etc. I felt Oliver was talking to me, conversationally and endearingly. Although she does not always use the 2nd person, I think what made me feel this interaction was based on how she describes things. Many of her flowers and trees are personified, rendering the line in a human emotion and gradually merging the non-human with human. She “talks” to elements of the natural world as though they are god-like, spiritual teachers. Yet, what I find important is that she makes this human interaction a daily notion.
The themes that resonate most for me revolve around ideas of death, existentialism, interaction, observation, teaching, eternity, song, and light. I felt a constant warmth, or yellow golden light that pervaded the poems and provided a constant energy. Thinking back to these poems, I remember images described by shades of gold, amber, orange, yellow, and butter. They evoke a warm vitality. She focuses on turning the natural world into a school; she makes it about going into the classroom (the woods or fields) and learning from the teachers (flowers, plants, animals). What seems most important is that her readers see and ask questions of the natural world. That is where life is, that is where you learn about death. Oliver uses the life cycle of certain flowers to portray eternity. In “The Bleeding Heart” she talks of the bleeding-heart plant living on through many generations, past her grandmother, and budding during her own life. Here, the “hearts” connect the narrator to her grandmother, grounding themselves deep in the earth so that they may sprout once again each spring. She also talks about a “sense of ever-ness” in “Upstream,” a place where she recognizes the lasting power of smelling damp, fresh earth. It seems the everlasting is where the narrator wants her readers to find happiness.
Another constant theme is existentialism. Oliver often focuses on the “being” of flowers. It is as though she connects humans to flowers through the “souls” of being. One cannot truly know or feel nature unless they put themselves “in” it. In “Black Oaks” she writes “why don’t you get going? / For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees. / And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists / of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, / I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.” It’s as though she wants to speak to every reader through her poetry by telling them to live like the flowers, to live humbly and attentively before we are gone forever.
Although I like many of the poems, one of my favorites is “Poppies.” I think this one spoke to me because I like how it contrasts the good with the bad. I like how Oliver introduces a negative or dark side into her bed of “yellow hairs” and “orange flares” and “spongy gold.” This realistic notion of the dark empowers her images of warmth, light, and happiness by contrasting them. I like how she portrays light as “an invitation to happiness”. Many of my most memorable experiences with the natural world have been watching the sun set at our cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is there where I see colors of the sun I have never seen before, colors that exude not only warmth, but like Oliver says, happiness and holiness. I remember sitting on the big rock in front of the cabin, looking out over the valleys, watching the light birth into the horizon and I, too, felt “washed and washed in the river of earthly delight.”
I feel this collection of poems is an extremely important and influential work that all nature writers should read. While reading this collection, I felt like I had become the flowers, plants and animals, etc. I felt Oliver was talking to me, conversationally and endearingly. Although she does not always use the 2nd person, I think what made me feel this interaction was based on how she describes things. Many of her flowers and trees are personified, rendering the line in a human emotion and gradually merging the non-human with human. She “talks” to elements of the natural world as though they are god-like, spiritual teachers. Yet, what I find important is that she makes this human interaction a daily notion.
The themes that resonate most for me revolve around ideas of death, existentialism, interaction, observation, teaching, eternity, song, and light. I felt a constant warmth, or yellow golden light that pervaded the poems and provided a constant energy. Thinking back to these poems, I remember images described by shades of gold, amber, orange, yellow, and butter. They evoke a warm vitality. She focuses on turning the natural world into a school; she makes it about going into the classroom (the woods or fields) and learning from the teachers (flowers, plants, animals). What seems most important is that her readers see and ask questions of the natural world. That is where life is, that is where you learn about death. Oliver uses the life cycle of certain flowers to portray eternity. In “The Bleeding Heart” she talks of the bleeding-heart plant living on through many generations, past her grandmother, and budding during her own life. Here, the “hearts” connect the narrator to her grandmother, grounding themselves deep in the earth so that they may sprout once again each spring. She also talks about a “sense of ever-ness” in “Upstream,” a place where she recognizes the lasting power of smelling damp, fresh earth. It seems the everlasting is where the narrator wants her readers to find happiness.
Another constant theme is existentialism. Oliver often focuses on the “being” of flowers. It is as though she connects humans to flowers through the “souls” of being. One cannot truly know or feel nature unless they put themselves “in” it. In “Black Oaks” she writes “why don’t you get going? / For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees. / And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists / of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, / I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.” It’s as though she wants to speak to every reader through her poetry by telling them to live like the flowers, to live humbly and attentively before we are gone forever.
Although I like many of the poems, one of my favorites is “Poppies.” I think this one spoke to me because I like how it contrasts the good with the bad. I like how Oliver introduces a negative or dark side into her bed of “yellow hairs” and “orange flares” and “spongy gold.” This realistic notion of the dark empowers her images of warmth, light, and happiness by contrasting them. I like how she portrays light as “an invitation to happiness”. Many of my most memorable experiences with the natural world have been watching the sun set at our cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is there where I see colors of the sun I have never seen before, colors that exude not only warmth, but like Oliver says, happiness and holiness. I remember sitting on the big rock in front of the cabin, looking out over the valleys, watching the light birth into the horizon and I, too, felt “washed and washed in the river of earthly delight.”
Monday, October 19, 2009
Nature Blog #6: Fall Frost
Monday, October 19, 2009
11:00 am
I bundle up, grab a cup of warm coffee and head out to my balcony. Today is one of the first sunny days this week. I embrace the heat of the sun as it warms my typing fingertips. The leaves of my honey locust are hanging lower than normal. Their long thin petals are turning from green to yellow to gold. They flutter ever so lightly in the passing breeze; its cold fall air bites at my nose. The birds are loud today. I think they have come out for the sun. Their calls remind me of spring, yet the air is cold and the foliage is full of color.
As I scan the ground below me, everything is green and dry. The past few days of rain seemed to have cleansed the earth. This morning when I took my dog to the park, the ground was still covered in frost. The grass looked coated in a silver sheet, frosted and fuzzy like sage. As the sun rose, I watched the line of light gradually melt away the frost. The minted gray turned green and wet. Pillars and columns of frost still stood out, shadowed by chimneys and trees. It looked like the reflection of a skyline in the glib waters of a city river.
One of my friendly groundhogs is scurrying just below me. He is walking along the edge of a European buckthorn, trudging his plump body back and forth as he grazes. I can barely tell where his head meets his body. He is a large groundhog with a tiny nose that peers out into the open, smelling for something to nibble. His hair shines in the morning light, black and auburn and brown streaks that hover like a log over the newly mowed grass. I have never seen him for this length of time; usually he darts from one hole to the next, hiding from noise or people. Up the steps he scurries, reaching the top of parking gravel, turns quickly and darts back down under the buckthorn. I think a car scared him. I wonder where his companions are. I know there are at least three groundhogs that live in the vacant lot next to my balcony. It seems he is also out today for the sun, to bask in its warmth and vitamin D.
The air feels heavy today. It is a clear fall morning, but as I scan the horizon I notice all the trees merge together. There is a slight blur between their silhouettes and the sky, a friendly haze that the sun proudly illuminates. I close my eyes and let the sun warm their lids. The tips of my eyelashes create halos of iridescent light as I slowly open them to the day. Trucks speed down Washington Blvd. and I am reminded of all I have to do today. For a moment, I wish I was far away from this noise, out in the middle of the countryside. I think I’ll take a trip this weekend, to the woods, or the mountains. This balcony is my place to come and think, but today I want to be some place far away, some place where the groundhogs never hide and where the morning frost would last longer, quiet and still as it melts slowly into the land.
11:00 am
I bundle up, grab a cup of warm coffee and head out to my balcony. Today is one of the first sunny days this week. I embrace the heat of the sun as it warms my typing fingertips. The leaves of my honey locust are hanging lower than normal. Their long thin petals are turning from green to yellow to gold. They flutter ever so lightly in the passing breeze; its cold fall air bites at my nose. The birds are loud today. I think they have come out for the sun. Their calls remind me of spring, yet the air is cold and the foliage is full of color.
As I scan the ground below me, everything is green and dry. The past few days of rain seemed to have cleansed the earth. This morning when I took my dog to the park, the ground was still covered in frost. The grass looked coated in a silver sheet, frosted and fuzzy like sage. As the sun rose, I watched the line of light gradually melt away the frost. The minted gray turned green and wet. Pillars and columns of frost still stood out, shadowed by chimneys and trees. It looked like the reflection of a skyline in the glib waters of a city river.
One of my friendly groundhogs is scurrying just below me. He is walking along the edge of a European buckthorn, trudging his plump body back and forth as he grazes. I can barely tell where his head meets his body. He is a large groundhog with a tiny nose that peers out into the open, smelling for something to nibble. His hair shines in the morning light, black and auburn and brown streaks that hover like a log over the newly mowed grass. I have never seen him for this length of time; usually he darts from one hole to the next, hiding from noise or people. Up the steps he scurries, reaching the top of parking gravel, turns quickly and darts back down under the buckthorn. I think a car scared him. I wonder where his companions are. I know there are at least three groundhogs that live in the vacant lot next to my balcony. It seems he is also out today for the sun, to bask in its warmth and vitamin D.
The air feels heavy today. It is a clear fall morning, but as I scan the horizon I notice all the trees merge together. There is a slight blur between their silhouettes and the sky, a friendly haze that the sun proudly illuminates. I close my eyes and let the sun warm their lids. The tips of my eyelashes create halos of iridescent light as I slowly open them to the day. Trucks speed down Washington Blvd. and I am reminded of all I have to do today. For a moment, I wish I was far away from this noise, out in the middle of the countryside. I think I’ll take a trip this weekend, to the woods, or the mountains. This balcony is my place to come and think, but today I want to be some place far away, some place where the groundhogs never hide and where the morning frost would last longer, quiet and still as it melts slowly into the land.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Ken Lamberton: Beyond Desert Walls
I could not put this book down. I think it is because he sets up a tension as early as the introduction by telling us he goes to jail. He reveals it in the first paragraph. I wanted to know so badly what happened? And why? And how did he write this in prison? Eventually, I forgot about my questions because I got so sucked into his writing. I admire Lamberton for his ability to weave nature writing with his story. He takes the external—the landscape, bugs, birds and trees and reflects in them the internal—his feelings, motives and fears. By the end of the book, I could read his descriptions of the desert and know that he was describing himself, or a part of himself. He didn’t have to tell me.
Lamberton uses a lot of themes that help tie the book together, themes that range from hunting and blood to adventure and escape. Each chapter orients around a place or a natural element, including insects and reptiles. There is a lot of scientific information that supports his profession as a teacher and naturalist. I found a lot of the information fascinating; it never felt boring or too scientific.(like how to get rid of chigger bites with a little nailpolish!-sounds a little too chemical though) Lamberton takes seemingly meaningless physical objects as well as massive landforms and projects his inner feelings onto them. Through old pottered containers he stumbles upon in caves or the Santa Catalina Mountains, Lamberton sheds layers of himself using his interactions with such forms.
There are wonderful metaphors throughout the book, such as on pg.39 when he writes “If, on a whim, the mountain shuddered, I would have become a fossil, curled in fetal position between limestone plates.” Or on pg. 22 when he writes “Deep into the canyon’s entrails, snowmelt collected in a string of stone basins like an ellipsis at the end of a slickrock sentence.” He takes his body and his language and weaves it into the land. I'm learning that’s what makes a good nature writer.
Although I truly love this book, there is something that drove me crazy. I wanted to know what exactly happened with the affair. He hints on it from time to time, revealing information that it was a young student, a girl student he kept close by, but he never puts it in scene. We never see or feel what actually happened, what decision he made that eventually sent him to jail. We know they ran off together, but that’s it. I wonder if that is partly due to the case itself. Often, information can not be disclosed during a trial, or ongoing investigation. I just felt a little betrayed at the end. It felt like he didn’t fulfill his promise that he left on page 1. (So much so that I did some research online and read an article from the journal in Arizona that did a piece on the entire story)
I found the last chapter of the book very interesting. It is in this chapter that Lamberton reveals a strong environmental tone. It is here that he reveals his love of gray hawks. I find this interesting because up until now, his feelings towards animals and the land have been almost ambiguous (minus the rattlesnake). It is in this chapter that he states his point of view on the environment. He reveals that he deeply cares about it and that it IS definitely worth saving. A long way from where we came in chapter one with him hunting and draining the blood of animals. “Why is it that even the footprints we leave behind cause harm? Why must human culture always have an impact?” He throws out logging, DDT, hunting, and consumerism all in one paragraph. I like what he’s saying but I guess I feel like I wasn’t expecting it so it felt rushed at the end.
I guess this revelation is part of his journey…that just like the land and the environment which he has learned to care so much about, he must do the same for himself and his family. He must learn to look at himself the same way he “sees” his natural surroundings and discover in him what he knows he will find in the land. Strength.
Lamberton uses a lot of themes that help tie the book together, themes that range from hunting and blood to adventure and escape. Each chapter orients around a place or a natural element, including insects and reptiles. There is a lot of scientific information that supports his profession as a teacher and naturalist. I found a lot of the information fascinating; it never felt boring or too scientific.(like how to get rid of chigger bites with a little nailpolish!-sounds a little too chemical though) Lamberton takes seemingly meaningless physical objects as well as massive landforms and projects his inner feelings onto them. Through old pottered containers he stumbles upon in caves or the Santa Catalina Mountains, Lamberton sheds layers of himself using his interactions with such forms.
There are wonderful metaphors throughout the book, such as on pg.39 when he writes “If, on a whim, the mountain shuddered, I would have become a fossil, curled in fetal position between limestone plates.” Or on pg. 22 when he writes “Deep into the canyon’s entrails, snowmelt collected in a string of stone basins like an ellipsis at the end of a slickrock sentence.” He takes his body and his language and weaves it into the land. I'm learning that’s what makes a good nature writer.
Although I truly love this book, there is something that drove me crazy. I wanted to know what exactly happened with the affair. He hints on it from time to time, revealing information that it was a young student, a girl student he kept close by, but he never puts it in scene. We never see or feel what actually happened, what decision he made that eventually sent him to jail. We know they ran off together, but that’s it. I wonder if that is partly due to the case itself. Often, information can not be disclosed during a trial, or ongoing investigation. I just felt a little betrayed at the end. It felt like he didn’t fulfill his promise that he left on page 1. (So much so that I did some research online and read an article from the journal in Arizona that did a piece on the entire story)
I found the last chapter of the book very interesting. It is in this chapter that Lamberton reveals a strong environmental tone. It is here that he reveals his love of gray hawks. I find this interesting because up until now, his feelings towards animals and the land have been almost ambiguous (minus the rattlesnake). It is in this chapter that he states his point of view on the environment. He reveals that he deeply cares about it and that it IS definitely worth saving. A long way from where we came in chapter one with him hunting and draining the blood of animals. “Why is it that even the footprints we leave behind cause harm? Why must human culture always have an impact?” He throws out logging, DDT, hunting, and consumerism all in one paragraph. I like what he’s saying but I guess I feel like I wasn’t expecting it so it felt rushed at the end.
I guess this revelation is part of his journey…that just like the land and the environment which he has learned to care so much about, he must do the same for himself and his family. He must learn to look at himself the same way he “sees” his natural surroundings and discover in him what he knows he will find in the land. Strength.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Response to Rants
I thoroughly enjoyed reading these rants. As a writer, I often get discouraged when a narrator doesn’t come out and say something they passionately feel. Reading these rants was almost cathartic for me. I say cathartic, but only half mean it because many of the points I agree with and some I was eager to argue.
Between Jack Turner’s “The Abstract Wild”, David Gessner’s “Sick of Nature” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place” excerpt, I have to say that my favorite was Gessner’s rant. What I liked most about his rant was his conversational tone. I never felt talked down upon or condescended, but rather like he was talking to me in person. I appreciated his word choice such as “shit” and “bejesus,” words that slip right out in real conversation but are avoided in writing. I also think this piece spoke to me the most. I could follow his desire to “escape” society, to flee to a place of nature and solitude, and then realize the position he actually put himself in and admit to regrets and/or changes in his state of mind. He basically criticizes himself when he makes fun of his fellow nature writers, yet in writing the rant proves to truly care for nature regardless. His rant compared to the others focuses less on a “political” issue and more on the issue of writing genres. I would think any writer would appreciate his approach. It is true that by forcing oneself into a genre “box” limits the wildness in which one can explore and express. More than that though, his rant speaks to the bigger picture of conformity. Don’t be what they tell you. Don’t do what is expected. Be wild. Be free. Be you.
Although I like all of these rants, if I had to pick my least favorite, it would be Kincaid’s excerpt from “A Small Place.” Maybe the reason for which I like it the least makes it, in fact, the best and most effective rant. First, I feel that her choice of the second person was extremely powerful, and at times almost too accusatory. By the end, I was frustrated and felt like I had to defend myself (as a white American who travels a lot). I wanted to write back: “Why can’t I go somewhere to learn, to see the ways and disadvantages others live, to understand, to care, and to come back home a better person because of it?” Not all whites or Europeans fall into the “tourist” category she stereotypes. And thus the point of her rant. I felt what she was saying. I think it needs to be said. She fulfilled the definition of a rant by using such a hostile tone and offending me, her reader. Her exaggerations are on purpose, and I believe they make their point. I am a defensive person by nature, and I’m writing this response after just finishing reading her rant. I am still heated up. Kincaid has done her job.
I can’t end this response without commenting on Turner’s “The Abstract Wild” because I truly loved it, and I felt it provided an entirely different focused rant. I like how he began the essay talking about anger and rage. He defines the words themselves, given in the root and derivative forms which makes the words that much more powerful each time he uses them. He successfully relays example after example of specific environmental degradation being done, so to provoke emotional response from the reader. It’s ironic that his words (or art) evokes an emotional response from me, the reader, even though he goes on about how photographs, movies, zoos, and national parks are not able to evoke the level of emotion needed in order to truly care about the wilderness. His tone is less conversational than Gessner and Kincaid; his voice is more academic and serious. I like how he touches on human characteristics, behavior, and psychology. I’m not sure if his rant would be as accessible to all readers, but appreciate his level of intelligence. It makes me want to think like him. Again, another challenge of the rant well done.
Between Jack Turner’s “The Abstract Wild”, David Gessner’s “Sick of Nature” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place” excerpt, I have to say that my favorite was Gessner’s rant. What I liked most about his rant was his conversational tone. I never felt talked down upon or condescended, but rather like he was talking to me in person. I appreciated his word choice such as “shit” and “bejesus,” words that slip right out in real conversation but are avoided in writing. I also think this piece spoke to me the most. I could follow his desire to “escape” society, to flee to a place of nature and solitude, and then realize the position he actually put himself in and admit to regrets and/or changes in his state of mind. He basically criticizes himself when he makes fun of his fellow nature writers, yet in writing the rant proves to truly care for nature regardless. His rant compared to the others focuses less on a “political” issue and more on the issue of writing genres. I would think any writer would appreciate his approach. It is true that by forcing oneself into a genre “box” limits the wildness in which one can explore and express. More than that though, his rant speaks to the bigger picture of conformity. Don’t be what they tell you. Don’t do what is expected. Be wild. Be free. Be you.
Although I like all of these rants, if I had to pick my least favorite, it would be Kincaid’s excerpt from “A Small Place.” Maybe the reason for which I like it the least makes it, in fact, the best and most effective rant. First, I feel that her choice of the second person was extremely powerful, and at times almost too accusatory. By the end, I was frustrated and felt like I had to defend myself (as a white American who travels a lot). I wanted to write back: “Why can’t I go somewhere to learn, to see the ways and disadvantages others live, to understand, to care, and to come back home a better person because of it?” Not all whites or Europeans fall into the “tourist” category she stereotypes. And thus the point of her rant. I felt what she was saying. I think it needs to be said. She fulfilled the definition of a rant by using such a hostile tone and offending me, her reader. Her exaggerations are on purpose, and I believe they make their point. I am a defensive person by nature, and I’m writing this response after just finishing reading her rant. I am still heated up. Kincaid has done her job.
I can’t end this response without commenting on Turner’s “The Abstract Wild” because I truly loved it, and I felt it provided an entirely different focused rant. I like how he began the essay talking about anger and rage. He defines the words themselves, given in the root and derivative forms which makes the words that much more powerful each time he uses them. He successfully relays example after example of specific environmental degradation being done, so to provoke emotional response from the reader. It’s ironic that his words (or art) evokes an emotional response from me, the reader, even though he goes on about how photographs, movies, zoos, and national parks are not able to evoke the level of emotion needed in order to truly care about the wilderness. His tone is less conversational than Gessner and Kincaid; his voice is more academic and serious. I like how he touches on human characteristics, behavior, and psychology. I’m not sure if his rant would be as accessible to all readers, but appreciate his level of intelligence. It makes me want to think like him. Again, another challenge of the rant well done.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Nature Blog #5: Thoughts of Foliage
Monday, October 5, 2009
3:30 pm
The clouds are moving. Their large cumulus and stratus puffs blow through the afternoon sky. The sun highlights the western side of each cloud, blinding the shapes I see. This is the coldest it has been yet, since coming here to my balcony spot. I feel the October air on my ankles. I can smell the cold in the wind; it smells like wet hair after a shower with hints of lemongrass and aloe. I am covered by the rooftop and guarded by the honey locust. And I’m jealous of the clouds’ open space, their exposure to sunlight, their ability to move freely. Every time I look up through the fluttering leaves, I see a different cloud of white, a different shape and sense.
I just got back from a trip to Vermont. My husband and I drove through the mountains and trees that make up the state. It was “foliage” weekend in South Burlington, where we spent our time. As we approached the state, the landscape turned richer and richer with color. It was like watching a blank canvas go from potential to painting. The leaves transformed into amber and gold, red and deep pink as we drove further north. I thought back to the trees in Pittsburgh, saw them following this same path soon. For miles, I stared at the multicolored canopies. The trees bled into one another with colors and hues that merged like a mosaic. I felt full of apples and honeysuckle, warmth and nostalgia, hay rides and hikes just looking at them. The landscape of trees was so vast, so brightened by the afternoon glare that we did not have to slow down to see the colors. They radiated a joyous glow that permeated the land and bordered our road of travel.
As I sit here on my balcony, I envision what these trees will look like soon. I wonder if they’ll emit that same clarity and color that the trees of Vermont possess up north. It makes me think of how seasons move. Growing up in Pennsylvania, I’ve always known the seasonal time line that this state experiences. I never think about how the seasons shift from state to state. I can see the cooler air coming down from Vermont, slowly wiping out all the green and lush and leaving the colors of fall. If I slow it down, I see the black spruce to the left of my balcony slowly fade into brown and trickle to the ground. I see the quaking aspen to my right blend into shades of orange and blonde. I see what I believe to be a chinquapin oak transform its shiny teethed leaves into shades of red far more beautiful than any lipstick.
Vermont gave me an early sighting of a change in season that is on its way. Like seeing into the future, I know what transformations this circle of trees has coming. I look forward to their coloring and anticipate their change of clothes. But for now, as the sun moves stealthily between these trees, I’ll enjoy them in their envious green.
3:30 pm
The clouds are moving. Their large cumulus and stratus puffs blow through the afternoon sky. The sun highlights the western side of each cloud, blinding the shapes I see. This is the coldest it has been yet, since coming here to my balcony spot. I feel the October air on my ankles. I can smell the cold in the wind; it smells like wet hair after a shower with hints of lemongrass and aloe. I am covered by the rooftop and guarded by the honey locust. And I’m jealous of the clouds’ open space, their exposure to sunlight, their ability to move freely. Every time I look up through the fluttering leaves, I see a different cloud of white, a different shape and sense.
I just got back from a trip to Vermont. My husband and I drove through the mountains and trees that make up the state. It was “foliage” weekend in South Burlington, where we spent our time. As we approached the state, the landscape turned richer and richer with color. It was like watching a blank canvas go from potential to painting. The leaves transformed into amber and gold, red and deep pink as we drove further north. I thought back to the trees in Pittsburgh, saw them following this same path soon. For miles, I stared at the multicolored canopies. The trees bled into one another with colors and hues that merged like a mosaic. I felt full of apples and honeysuckle, warmth and nostalgia, hay rides and hikes just looking at them. The landscape of trees was so vast, so brightened by the afternoon glare that we did not have to slow down to see the colors. They radiated a joyous glow that permeated the land and bordered our road of travel.
As I sit here on my balcony, I envision what these trees will look like soon. I wonder if they’ll emit that same clarity and color that the trees of Vermont possess up north. It makes me think of how seasons move. Growing up in Pennsylvania, I’ve always known the seasonal time line that this state experiences. I never think about how the seasons shift from state to state. I can see the cooler air coming down from Vermont, slowly wiping out all the green and lush and leaving the colors of fall. If I slow it down, I see the black spruce to the left of my balcony slowly fade into brown and trickle to the ground. I see the quaking aspen to my right blend into shades of orange and blonde. I see what I believe to be a chinquapin oak transform its shiny teethed leaves into shades of red far more beautiful than any lipstick.
Vermont gave me an early sighting of a change in season that is on its way. Like seeing into the future, I know what transformations this circle of trees has coming. I look forward to their coloring and anticipate their change of clothes. But for now, as the sun moves stealthily between these trees, I’ll enjoy them in their envious green.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Janisse Ray's Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
The first thing that strikes me about Janisse Ray’s memoir/nature book is the title. I feel titles are often overlooked or under discussed in writing and I want to acknowledge the strength behind this title. It is original and edgy and I think would grab anyone’s attention. Janisse Ray is a very seamless writer. From the beginning of the book I feel her sentences, whether long or short, are tight and clear without lacking originality or rhythm. The first sentence that led me into the writing of Ray came on the first page of the introduction: “At night the stars are thick and bright as a pint jar of fireflies, the moon at full a pearly orb, sailing through them like an egret.” From then on, I was hooked.
Ray takes her readers through a childhood in an unusual landscape. It is not often you read about living in the middle of a junkyard, heaps of metal surrounding the narrator’s bedroom window. I find it refreshing and adventurous, stepping into this foreign world. Ray makes it accessible. She sets a tone that welcomes me as the reader into the characters from which she came. The first few stories seem to focus primarily on Ray’s extended family. She tells stories as though she heard them yesterday, and at times I question her credibility because of how removed she seems to be from the event at hand. That being said, she is a phenomenal storyteller who balances scene and description with confidence and cadence. I especially enjoy the stories of her and her brothers. I think I was hanging on to her voice in them because I didn’t feel her as much in the beginning. She chooses the right memories to include, and as I look back on them I see their significance even more.
I particularly like her organizational structure. She alternates between memoir that reveals the lives and characters of her parents, grandparents and siblings and nature essays that articulate scientifically as well as personally the destruction of the longleaf pine forests. It is not until the end of the book that I started to see a clear message of connectivity between the forests and her family, nature and the junkyard. I admire what she does in her chapter entitled “Built by Fire.” She tells the story of how the pine leaf and lightning battled back and forth until they both learned to adapt and live with one another. Instead of just telling us what happened, she turns the pine and the lightning into characters, characters who have feelings and words. I find that to be an extremely inventive and interesting way to relay information. It inspires me to see the non-human world as characters in my own pieces.
Another question I have relates to her scientific classification. On pg. 211 more than halfway through the book, Ray states that “[she] left home now knowing the name of one wild bird except maybe a crow, and that [she] couldn’t identify wildflowers and trees.” Yet throughout the entire book, even when she seems to be in her “child” voice, she articulates very clearly and abundantly specific names of birds, trees, flowers and reptiles. I know she must have learned all of these names later, then gone back and put in their classifications, but there were times when I felt it was obviously not her voice and took away from the memoirist's point of view. Regardless, she does a seamless job of incorporating such scientific details throughout the entire book and if she hadn’t admitted to her ignorance, I would have never thought otherwise.
Ray flawlessly opens an essay/chapter. Every first sentence I read astonishes me in its structure and meaning. One of my favorites is: “There is a way to have your cake and eat it too; a way to log yet preserve a forest” (251). Or “A couple of million years ago a pine fell in love with a place that belonged to lightning” (35). Each opener holds a snippet of her voice that adds up over the entire book in a culmination at the end. Some of my favorite passages come from the very end and I think it is because I get more of Ray. She is there, in every event, every reflection, and every sentence. There is no Mama, or Dell or biologist friend to take the role of main character.
In this book, Ray is able to get at the heart of the longleaf pine destruction with compassion, detail and sincerity without an agenda or negative tone. She tells it like it is, amidst the stories of her childhood and family so that what we feel for her and the people around her, we can shift to the pines with care.
Ray takes her readers through a childhood in an unusual landscape. It is not often you read about living in the middle of a junkyard, heaps of metal surrounding the narrator’s bedroom window. I find it refreshing and adventurous, stepping into this foreign world. Ray makes it accessible. She sets a tone that welcomes me as the reader into the characters from which she came. The first few stories seem to focus primarily on Ray’s extended family. She tells stories as though she heard them yesterday, and at times I question her credibility because of how removed she seems to be from the event at hand. That being said, she is a phenomenal storyteller who balances scene and description with confidence and cadence. I especially enjoy the stories of her and her brothers. I think I was hanging on to her voice in them because I didn’t feel her as much in the beginning. She chooses the right memories to include, and as I look back on them I see their significance even more.
I particularly like her organizational structure. She alternates between memoir that reveals the lives and characters of her parents, grandparents and siblings and nature essays that articulate scientifically as well as personally the destruction of the longleaf pine forests. It is not until the end of the book that I started to see a clear message of connectivity between the forests and her family, nature and the junkyard. I admire what she does in her chapter entitled “Built by Fire.” She tells the story of how the pine leaf and lightning battled back and forth until they both learned to adapt and live with one another. Instead of just telling us what happened, she turns the pine and the lightning into characters, characters who have feelings and words. I find that to be an extremely inventive and interesting way to relay information. It inspires me to see the non-human world as characters in my own pieces.
Another question I have relates to her scientific classification. On pg. 211 more than halfway through the book, Ray states that “[she] left home now knowing the name of one wild bird except maybe a crow, and that [she] couldn’t identify wildflowers and trees.” Yet throughout the entire book, even when she seems to be in her “child” voice, she articulates very clearly and abundantly specific names of birds, trees, flowers and reptiles. I know she must have learned all of these names later, then gone back and put in their classifications, but there were times when I felt it was obviously not her voice and took away from the memoirist's point of view. Regardless, she does a seamless job of incorporating such scientific details throughout the entire book and if she hadn’t admitted to her ignorance, I would have never thought otherwise.
Ray flawlessly opens an essay/chapter. Every first sentence I read astonishes me in its structure and meaning. One of my favorites is: “There is a way to have your cake and eat it too; a way to log yet preserve a forest” (251). Or “A couple of million years ago a pine fell in love with a place that belonged to lightning” (35). Each opener holds a snippet of her voice that adds up over the entire book in a culmination at the end. Some of my favorite passages come from the very end and I think it is because I get more of Ray. She is there, in every event, every reflection, and every sentence. There is no Mama, or Dell or biologist friend to take the role of main character.
In this book, Ray is able to get at the heart of the longleaf pine destruction with compassion, detail and sincerity without an agenda or negative tone. She tells it like it is, amidst the stories of her childhood and family so that what we feel for her and the people around her, we can shift to the pines with care.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Nature Blog #4: A Fall Feeling
Sunday, September 27, 2009
6:30 pm
It definitely feels like fall is here. Not only is the air much cooler, but I can see patches of trees in the distant starting to change color. Two black crows fly overhead at a slow steady stride, setting a calm mood on this quiet Sunday evening. It has been raining for two days, a constant steady rush of wetness that seems to have washed away all the summer flowers and budding branches, a little house cleaning as fall arrives. Even the air that normally has wafts of cigarettes from my neighbor or oil from the carpenter that works below, smells clean like fresh washed clothes. The birds are quiet this evening; I imagine they are still hiding in between tight branches from the downpour that wouldn’t cease. But the crickets are strong, a steady rhythmic beat that sounds like a percussion ensemble, with a drum roll of roaring cars zipping down Washington Blvd.
The sun has finally broken through after two days of gray and cloud. I can see its amber glow highlighting a section of trees to my left. They are the tallest trees in the area, bushy up top with long and lean trunks. As the sun makes its way down, they are the first to feel its fading body heat. These trees to my left draw my attention to a group of birds, each perched on a different branch of a naked brown tree, half filled with crunchy dead leaves hanging on until the next winds pass, and half completely void of any leaves. Each bird’s silhouette is distinct and bold with a cotton blue backdrop and branches sprouting like fingertips. I cannot see what type of bird they are; it is too far away. And I wish I had a pair of binoculars so I could observe this family meeting. The heads are very small, with robust rounded chests that stick out like balloons in the trees’ open air.
Above them is the moon slightly more than half full. It looks like a large pebble floating in the sky, a smooth white and gray drifter that follows the flow and is clear like water. I cannot see the sun, though I feel the warmth of its last rays and glow hidden behind the honey locust's edges.
Sundays in late September, when I pull out my sweaters and jeans always take me back to my childhood, to the beginning of school years, a new classroom, a new teacher. No matter how old I am or where I am in the world, when the weather changes direction and the cooler fall winds come, I cannot ignore the nostalgia that seems to rest in between the tree’s and the sky. It is an air of younger years, of making new friends and wearing new backpacks. It is football games and field hockey practice, homework and spaghetti dinners. There is anxiousness about this emotion, a good and nervous feeling at the same time. Even years later as an adult, I can remember what it felt like to be a child or teenager in the fall. I can remember looking out the window from my desk, or sitting on my front porch with friends, or walking to a football game, and seeing the very same moon I see tonight.
6:30 pm
It definitely feels like fall is here. Not only is the air much cooler, but I can see patches of trees in the distant starting to change color. Two black crows fly overhead at a slow steady stride, setting a calm mood on this quiet Sunday evening. It has been raining for two days, a constant steady rush of wetness that seems to have washed away all the summer flowers and budding branches, a little house cleaning as fall arrives. Even the air that normally has wafts of cigarettes from my neighbor or oil from the carpenter that works below, smells clean like fresh washed clothes. The birds are quiet this evening; I imagine they are still hiding in between tight branches from the downpour that wouldn’t cease. But the crickets are strong, a steady rhythmic beat that sounds like a percussion ensemble, with a drum roll of roaring cars zipping down Washington Blvd.
The sun has finally broken through after two days of gray and cloud. I can see its amber glow highlighting a section of trees to my left. They are the tallest trees in the area, bushy up top with long and lean trunks. As the sun makes its way down, they are the first to feel its fading body heat. These trees to my left draw my attention to a group of birds, each perched on a different branch of a naked brown tree, half filled with crunchy dead leaves hanging on until the next winds pass, and half completely void of any leaves. Each bird’s silhouette is distinct and bold with a cotton blue backdrop and branches sprouting like fingertips. I cannot see what type of bird they are; it is too far away. And I wish I had a pair of binoculars so I could observe this family meeting. The heads are very small, with robust rounded chests that stick out like balloons in the trees’ open air.
Above them is the moon slightly more than half full. It looks like a large pebble floating in the sky, a smooth white and gray drifter that follows the flow and is clear like water. I cannot see the sun, though I feel the warmth of its last rays and glow hidden behind the honey locust's edges.
Sundays in late September, when I pull out my sweaters and jeans always take me back to my childhood, to the beginning of school years, a new classroom, a new teacher. No matter how old I am or where I am in the world, when the weather changes direction and the cooler fall winds come, I cannot ignore the nostalgia that seems to rest in between the tree’s and the sky. It is an air of younger years, of making new friends and wearing new backpacks. It is football games and field hockey practice, homework and spaghetti dinners. There is anxiousness about this emotion, a good and nervous feeling at the same time. Even years later as an adult, I can remember what it felt like to be a child or teenager in the fall. I can remember looking out the window from my desk, or sitting on my front porch with friends, or walking to a football game, and seeing the very same moon I see tonight.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Edward Abbey and Desert Solitaire
Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire is much more than "A Season in the Wilderness." I’ve read Abbey's essays before, some individually published that come from this collection, yet I now see the power of his voice when they all come together to paint a much larger and more beautiful picture. Abbey took me to an unfamiliar world out West, to a world I have never even stepped foot in, to a world that I now feel I know and love, at least enough to want to go there.
In each chapter/essay, Abbey reveals a different aspect of his stay in Arches Park, Utah. His vivid imagery and detailed accounts take the reader inside his camper, to the fire outside his doorstep, through the dry vast desert hills, and inside the pools that fill canyons. But most importantly, what he does is take the reader on a mental journey where destruction, ignorance, politics and civilization haunt and even encourage a deeper, more meaningful meditation on the world in which we live.
I am overly impressed with his ability to retain and record scientific and historical information, whether it be to name every plant and flower he sees in passing, or to recollect a period in history that occurred on the very same ground he is walking. This, along with his diverse voice that is doused with humor, sarcasm, rant, generosity, intelligence, humility, passion and anger create a story where nothing seems to be missing. Abbey includes all aspects of life by meditating on and questioning existence, death, god, nature, man, civilization and culture. And, he does all of this through telling the story of his six month adventure in Arches National Monument, Utah.
Considering Blog Prompts:
I found Abbey’s method of delivering his opinions and ideals on the topics of industrial tourism, development of national parks and the use of public land to be refreshing, humorous, intelligent and justified. Although as a nature writer myself, I know that environmental agendas in the form of rants are not always respected and/or appreciated in nature writing, I genuinely feel that Abbey was on a different level. From his first essay, Abbey lays a tone for this book, one that is genuine, engaging and credited. His vast knowledge of Utah land, his love of secluded wilderness and his passion for preserving what is still in tact, all play as a foundation for his following “takes” on such topics.
What makes Abbey’s rants work for me, particularly on Industrial Tourism, is that he provides an alternative to the madness he’s trying to prevent. Many times, those who speak out against something are propelled by anger, and come across sounding ridiculous because they do not give any looks or outcomes into another alternative. That being said, there were times in the book when I could not quite believe how viciously honest Abbey was being. I felt that in general his points were heard and whether they be rants of anger and sarcasm or pleads of truth and passion, should be taken seriously.
I especially appreciate Abbey’s take on “wilderness.” He makes it so much more than a place, so much stronger than a nature we know. It is the “past and the unknown, the womb of the earth from which we all emerged.” It is “the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need—if only we had the eyes to see it” (208).
In each chapter/essay, Abbey reveals a different aspect of his stay in Arches Park, Utah. His vivid imagery and detailed accounts take the reader inside his camper, to the fire outside his doorstep, through the dry vast desert hills, and inside the pools that fill canyons. But most importantly, what he does is take the reader on a mental journey where destruction, ignorance, politics and civilization haunt and even encourage a deeper, more meaningful meditation on the world in which we live.
I am overly impressed with his ability to retain and record scientific and historical information, whether it be to name every plant and flower he sees in passing, or to recollect a period in history that occurred on the very same ground he is walking. This, along with his diverse voice that is doused with humor, sarcasm, rant, generosity, intelligence, humility, passion and anger create a story where nothing seems to be missing. Abbey includes all aspects of life by meditating on and questioning existence, death, god, nature, man, civilization and culture. And, he does all of this through telling the story of his six month adventure in Arches National Monument, Utah.
Considering Blog Prompts:
I found Abbey’s method of delivering his opinions and ideals on the topics of industrial tourism, development of national parks and the use of public land to be refreshing, humorous, intelligent and justified. Although as a nature writer myself, I know that environmental agendas in the form of rants are not always respected and/or appreciated in nature writing, I genuinely feel that Abbey was on a different level. From his first essay, Abbey lays a tone for this book, one that is genuine, engaging and credited. His vast knowledge of Utah land, his love of secluded wilderness and his passion for preserving what is still in tact, all play as a foundation for his following “takes” on such topics.
What makes Abbey’s rants work for me, particularly on Industrial Tourism, is that he provides an alternative to the madness he’s trying to prevent. Many times, those who speak out against something are propelled by anger, and come across sounding ridiculous because they do not give any looks or outcomes into another alternative. That being said, there were times in the book when I could not quite believe how viciously honest Abbey was being. I felt that in general his points were heard and whether they be rants of anger and sarcasm or pleads of truth and passion, should be taken seriously.
I especially appreciate Abbey’s take on “wilderness.” He makes it so much more than a place, so much stronger than a nature we know. It is the “past and the unknown, the womb of the earth from which we all emerged.” It is “the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need—if only we had the eyes to see it” (208).
Nature Blog #3: Balcony Rain
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
12:30 pm
What I love about my balcony is that although I feel nestled in curtains of trees and animal dwellings, I have a roof to cover me during rainy days like this. The rain is a constant drizzle, falling on all sides around me coating the trees high leaves like the glaze of pottery being fired. The air is cool and the breeze sends hidden smells of damp earth and clean honey. Birds still faintly chirp in the background, yet the sound of raindrop tattering against the nearby canopies outcries the random birdsong’s call.
From up here, I can see the soil between weeds begin to darken and bleed rich with moisture. Each blade of grass is highlighted in the feeble sun’s rays hiding behind a sheet of rainclouds luring up above. The grass is long in my yard, and there are patches of blades that curl over and fall like a mini weeping willow. Being outside in the rain, feelings its wetness and hearing its fall, reminds me of camping. Whenever I am camping and it starts to rain, there is nowhere to go but inside a tent. Yet between me and the outside weather is a nylon sheathing, thick enough to keep out too much water, but thin enough that I can still hear the pellets as they tap like fingers against the sides, and still smell the earth beneath my bottom soaking up water in underground passageways. I still feel like I am “in it,” cleansing right along with the earth and its inhabitants.
The water comes down heavy against the gutter that lines my neighbor’s balcony. It sounds like denting metal in a bathtub, unnatural to this tree top height of pitter- patting rain drops and slowly stifling leaves. I cannot forget I am in a city however. The splashing of tires against the rain’s puddles echoes through the trees and into my balcony. I cannot see the obnoxious automobiles, yet I hear their turns and swivels.
Most of my fellow dwellers are hiding in their dens. The three groundhogs that live beside my balcony in a large vacant field are nowhere to be seen. When rain begins to pour, I’ve seen them scurry into their holes filling their entrances with the bush of their floppy tail. The bird’s nest that sits above my shoulder at the corner of the building’s roof is completely silent, except for the splatter of raindrops meandering through its woven fibers, falling from below on to the metal covered roof. My spider webs are all gone, blown away by the rain’s shifting winds, glistens of wet string falling graciously to the cemented walk below. And, although my fellow creatures who are usually here as my companions are gone, I do not feel lonely simply staring into the trees.
The honey locust looks like a dripping wet grandfather, its wrinkles and crevices collecting water and debris, its hunched-over trunk and branches darkening in the steady pour. It is cloudy and overcast, but the green is still lush. Green like limecicles and moist like their sweat, just after you open one up into room temperature. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice four birds leaping from branch to branch in the drooping pine that sits to my left. They seem to be talking to one another, trying to figure out what to do on this rainy rainy day.
12:30 pm
What I love about my balcony is that although I feel nestled in curtains of trees and animal dwellings, I have a roof to cover me during rainy days like this. The rain is a constant drizzle, falling on all sides around me coating the trees high leaves like the glaze of pottery being fired. The air is cool and the breeze sends hidden smells of damp earth and clean honey. Birds still faintly chirp in the background, yet the sound of raindrop tattering against the nearby canopies outcries the random birdsong’s call.
From up here, I can see the soil between weeds begin to darken and bleed rich with moisture. Each blade of grass is highlighted in the feeble sun’s rays hiding behind a sheet of rainclouds luring up above. The grass is long in my yard, and there are patches of blades that curl over and fall like a mini weeping willow. Being outside in the rain, feelings its wetness and hearing its fall, reminds me of camping. Whenever I am camping and it starts to rain, there is nowhere to go but inside a tent. Yet between me and the outside weather is a nylon sheathing, thick enough to keep out too much water, but thin enough that I can still hear the pellets as they tap like fingers against the sides, and still smell the earth beneath my bottom soaking up water in underground passageways. I still feel like I am “in it,” cleansing right along with the earth and its inhabitants.
The water comes down heavy against the gutter that lines my neighbor’s balcony. It sounds like denting metal in a bathtub, unnatural to this tree top height of pitter- patting rain drops and slowly stifling leaves. I cannot forget I am in a city however. The splashing of tires against the rain’s puddles echoes through the trees and into my balcony. I cannot see the obnoxious automobiles, yet I hear their turns and swivels.
Most of my fellow dwellers are hiding in their dens. The three groundhogs that live beside my balcony in a large vacant field are nowhere to be seen. When rain begins to pour, I’ve seen them scurry into their holes filling their entrances with the bush of their floppy tail. The bird’s nest that sits above my shoulder at the corner of the building’s roof is completely silent, except for the splatter of raindrops meandering through its woven fibers, falling from below on to the metal covered roof. My spider webs are all gone, blown away by the rain’s shifting winds, glistens of wet string falling graciously to the cemented walk below. And, although my fellow creatures who are usually here as my companions are gone, I do not feel lonely simply staring into the trees.
The honey locust looks like a dripping wet grandfather, its wrinkles and crevices collecting water and debris, its hunched-over trunk and branches darkening in the steady pour. It is cloudy and overcast, but the green is still lush. Green like limecicles and moist like their sweat, just after you open one up into room temperature. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice four birds leaping from branch to branch in the drooping pine that sits to my left. They seem to be talking to one another, trying to figure out what to do on this rainy rainy day.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
A Weed By Any Other Name: The Virtues of a Messy Lawn, or Learning to Love the Plants We Don’t Plant
I was walking my lab puppy, Bill, to Frick Park this morning when I realized the amount of plants I was staring out, wondering if they were morning glory, ragweed, or even a plant outside the weed family. I was extremely interested in which lawns seemed to be manicured, which ones had some corners of weeds or fences lined in crabgrass. After reading Nancy Gift’s A Weed By Any Other Name, I find myself genuinely interested in the plants that fill the backyard of my apartment building. Yesterday I was sitting out in the sun and I looked down to see what I thought could be prostrate spurge and joyed in the presence of morning glories lining the fence beside me. It made me feel good to know I was surrounded by some weeds, a sign that the land is healthy enough for insects and animals, and balanced enough to display diverse weeds.
The first thing I noticed when reading Gift's book was her organizational structure. Although an avid nature reader, I have only read a few books that are broken down by seasons. What I appreciate about Gift’s choice, however, is how within each season she breaks down the chapters by specific weeds that correlate with each season, a kind of year-long time line I could follow, while picturing the changing plants in my head, and seeing their cycles first-hand. (Looking back, I think I would have really loved an image, just a black and white sketch of each weed below its name so that I could classify them on my own when I stepped outside.) I particularly enjoyed how she ends each section, often on a very reflective and meaningful note that gave me glimpses into her emotions connected with weeds: “When I see our own morning glories each fall, I feel grateful to this plant, which volunteers its blooms as bright jewels on the cool mornings of the waning garden”(120).
The book is filled with a lot of scientific information, some I was immersed in while some I had a hard time understanding, as someone who has not studied weeds before. Although I found myself questioning certain processes or functions, I felt I gained an overall knowledge of weeds that I had not known before. I learned that “grafting” is a transplant of plant organs in order to mesh a healthy stem with a not so healthy or weak stem. I learned that dandelions could be used to make wine, although a long and tedious process. I learned that many weeds can be a red flag for severe soil problems down below, and I learned that moss grows at an incredibly slow rate. Most of all, though, I felt Gift’s biggest accomplishment was in combining years of plant studies with the life she led in an honest and refreshing tone. She admits hypocrisy when she douses poison ivy in Roundtop, and expresses her true feelings about disliking certain weeds. She reveals secrets of the world of weeds that would make any human being think twice about the next time they step into their own back yard.
As someone who has never had a problem with weeds, who has grown up playing in woods and poison ivy, I needed less convincing that “weeds aren’t the enemy” and more of an understanding of the role we(humans) have in their life cycle. And, Gift gave me that. I also believe she gives those not-so-open-minded homeowners a new light through which to see their gardens and their fields, a light that could bring organic warmth to the suburban yards "number one enemy."
The first thing I noticed when reading Gift's book was her organizational structure. Although an avid nature reader, I have only read a few books that are broken down by seasons. What I appreciate about Gift’s choice, however, is how within each season she breaks down the chapters by specific weeds that correlate with each season, a kind of year-long time line I could follow, while picturing the changing plants in my head, and seeing their cycles first-hand. (Looking back, I think I would have really loved an image, just a black and white sketch of each weed below its name so that I could classify them on my own when I stepped outside.) I particularly enjoyed how she ends each section, often on a very reflective and meaningful note that gave me glimpses into her emotions connected with weeds: “When I see our own morning glories each fall, I feel grateful to this plant, which volunteers its blooms as bright jewels on the cool mornings of the waning garden”(120).
The book is filled with a lot of scientific information, some I was immersed in while some I had a hard time understanding, as someone who has not studied weeds before. Although I found myself questioning certain processes or functions, I felt I gained an overall knowledge of weeds that I had not known before. I learned that “grafting” is a transplant of plant organs in order to mesh a healthy stem with a not so healthy or weak stem. I learned that dandelions could be used to make wine, although a long and tedious process. I learned that many weeds can be a red flag for severe soil problems down below, and I learned that moss grows at an incredibly slow rate. Most of all, though, I felt Gift’s biggest accomplishment was in combining years of plant studies with the life she led in an honest and refreshing tone. She admits hypocrisy when she douses poison ivy in Roundtop, and expresses her true feelings about disliking certain weeds. She reveals secrets of the world of weeds that would make any human being think twice about the next time they step into their own back yard.
As someone who has never had a problem with weeds, who has grown up playing in woods and poison ivy, I needed less convincing that “weeds aren’t the enemy” and more of an understanding of the role we(humans) have in their life cycle. And, Gift gave me that. I also believe she gives those not-so-open-minded homeowners a new light through which to see their gardens and their fields, a light that could bring organic warmth to the suburban yards "number one enemy."
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Nature Blog #1: Birds and Balconies
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
2:45pm
The wind picks up a steady confident speed as I sit here on the balcony of my apartment. This is a place I always come to sit and relax, taking in whatever sights and sounds surround me and my steel-framed railing. I chose this spot because I am high up. On the third floor of an old brick building, my balcony stretches out into the trees bodies, feet from touching their branches, moments from hearing their whispers. I like that I can see what the birds see; everything looks different from up here, and although I cannot feel the soft soiled ground beneath my toes, I can see things I never would when walking amongst the grasses.
The green is pervasive. Even though it is just a backyard, and even though I am yards away from Penn Ave and Washington Blvd, I feel enclosed in a world of leaves and pine needles, nestled in the armpits of sturdy boughs. I can see the tips of leaves that fall from the highest point of the tree, detailed with yellow rims and tan freckles, details I could never see from far down below. And for some reason I feel the bird calls and cricket songs are amplified as though the trees openings are its speakers, and I am sitting right next to them.
An assortment of small plants sits in front of me. Plants that I bought toward the end of the summer, hoping they would hold on a few more weeks so that I might enjoy their presence. I love plants. If I didn’t have a lab puppy, my apartment would be swarming with plants. I bought these few in hopes that they would fulfill the lacking of green in my home, a green I want to hang from ceilings and fill up corners. The black-eyed susan is starting to die; the once lush green leaves now wilting to a purplish tint, fuzzy hairs surround the edges. An anise hyssop stands tall next to my shoulder and although its tiny purple flowers are darkening into a stone cold gray, its leaves possess the green of mint, holding on to the warm days of September.
The crickets cry all day long up here, blending in with traffic noise so well that sometimes I cannot tell the two apart. I find this place so dense because of its merging between nature and city. What looks like an ant with wings crawls next to my laptop, pulsating its thorax back and forth on the card table as a helicopter flies overhead passing through the fluttering green of the trees swaying branches. Where a slug meets sidewalk down below, I see its iridescent trail of slime in the afternoon sun, making its way down over a bleak cloud. I want to sit here this semester and find that place between serene nature and stimulating city, that place that makes up my environment, that maintains the green of mountaintops yet lives in the urban sprawl of life. A car rears its engine as the sun breaks through the canopy and casts a warmth on my face.
2:45pm
The wind picks up a steady confident speed as I sit here on the balcony of my apartment. This is a place I always come to sit and relax, taking in whatever sights and sounds surround me and my steel-framed railing. I chose this spot because I am high up. On the third floor of an old brick building, my balcony stretches out into the trees bodies, feet from touching their branches, moments from hearing their whispers. I like that I can see what the birds see; everything looks different from up here, and although I cannot feel the soft soiled ground beneath my toes, I can see things I never would when walking amongst the grasses.
The green is pervasive. Even though it is just a backyard, and even though I am yards away from Penn Ave and Washington Blvd, I feel enclosed in a world of leaves and pine needles, nestled in the armpits of sturdy boughs. I can see the tips of leaves that fall from the highest point of the tree, detailed with yellow rims and tan freckles, details I could never see from far down below. And for some reason I feel the bird calls and cricket songs are amplified as though the trees openings are its speakers, and I am sitting right next to them.
An assortment of small plants sits in front of me. Plants that I bought toward the end of the summer, hoping they would hold on a few more weeks so that I might enjoy their presence. I love plants. If I didn’t have a lab puppy, my apartment would be swarming with plants. I bought these few in hopes that they would fulfill the lacking of green in my home, a green I want to hang from ceilings and fill up corners. The black-eyed susan is starting to die; the once lush green leaves now wilting to a purplish tint, fuzzy hairs surround the edges. An anise hyssop stands tall next to my shoulder and although its tiny purple flowers are darkening into a stone cold gray, its leaves possess the green of mint, holding on to the warm days of September.
The crickets cry all day long up here, blending in with traffic noise so well that sometimes I cannot tell the two apart. I find this place so dense because of its merging between nature and city. What looks like an ant with wings crawls next to my laptop, pulsating its thorax back and forth on the card table as a helicopter flies overhead passing through the fluttering green of the trees swaying branches. Where a slug meets sidewalk down below, I see its iridescent trail of slime in the afternoon sun, making its way down over a bleak cloud. I want to sit here this semester and find that place between serene nature and stimulating city, that place that makes up my environment, that maintains the green of mountaintops yet lives in the urban sprawl of life. A car rears its engine as the sun breaks through the canopy and casts a warmth on my face.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Bahia Blues
This is my first journal entry for my trip to Brazil, based off of my reading of Yasmina Traboulsi's "Bahia Blues."
I’m going to start off this entry with a passage I wrote from my “final reflection” to the Brazilian Literature class I took this past semester: “I did feel a sense of gloom overriding a lot of the chosen material, and I was left with a somewhat dismal emotion at the end of each story. However, as I learned more and more about where these writers were coming from (culturally), I began to see and feel this "light-heartedness" that Heloisa spoke of, an essence that embodied a hope, a desire, a light at the end of the tunnel, per se.” I think this reflection sums up the same feeling I had after reading Yasmina Traboulsi’s “Bahia Blues.” Based on the title, and because of the previous works I studied including Assis, Rosa and Lispector, I had a sense that this novel would include aspects of the Brazilian “favela” such as poverty, crime, and misfortune.
The structure of the book was new to me and it took a little while to get used to the “choppy” movement of paragraphs. I often found myself going back to a previous page to find the paragraph that coincided with the current one I was reading. I did find it a little agitating, but by the end I appreciated the effect it had on me as a reader. It was real; much of our lives happen simultaneously and Traboulsi was able to create that effect successfully by using this choppy format. Traboulsi’s language is simple and direct, so I had no trouble following the narrative, but it was also very beautiful and powerful in places, leaving me with vivid images and gripping emotions.
This novel further educated me about the lives of Brazilians living together in a community, sharing their lives and supporting their dreams, although they are often surrounded by pain and destruction. “Bahia Blues” is the real thing; no sugarcoating or optimistic elaboration, but rather telling us how it is in a "favela." Yet, as I said in my passage, I do feel that of the Brazilian literature I have read, there is something in common. There is this never-ending desire to reach for something better, something that holds a sense of hope for all that seek it despite the pain and suffering. And, there is a sense of community in “the square” of Bahia, a sense that everyone is family and that everyone needs to be loved no matter the circumstances. I picked out aspects of Brazilian life that we had often discussed in my Literature course, such as the idea of fortune-tellers like Mama Lourdes and the influential role they play in society. It reminded me of Machado d’Assis’ short story “The Fortune Teller,” where the fate of two young lovers is in the hands of her magic. I also recognized the power of soap-operas and how the banality of Brazilian life is colored and heightened by the melodramatic TV soaps, bringing to screen the familial life “behind closed doors” that no one ever talks about. “Bahia Blues” left me, yet again, with a disturbing feeling that I remember feeling after many of the Brazilian works I’ve read thus far. Yet, there is something very powerful that I get from these works that goes much deeper than the pain and suffering of the circumstances. It is a feeling of survival; of people overcoming aspects of life that often seem unbelievable. I admire Traboulsi’s strength to create these story lines, ones that may ring very close to a life she knows and understands, even though she grew up in Paris. It makes me feel like reading about suffering and poverty is one of the best ways to truly understand it, acknowledge it exists, and feel motivated to go out and change it.
I’m going to start off this entry with a passage I wrote from my “final reflection” to the Brazilian Literature class I took this past semester: “I did feel a sense of gloom overriding a lot of the chosen material, and I was left with a somewhat dismal emotion at the end of each story. However, as I learned more and more about where these writers were coming from (culturally), I began to see and feel this "light-heartedness" that Heloisa spoke of, an essence that embodied a hope, a desire, a light at the end of the tunnel, per se.” I think this reflection sums up the same feeling I had after reading Yasmina Traboulsi’s “Bahia Blues.” Based on the title, and because of the previous works I studied including Assis, Rosa and Lispector, I had a sense that this novel would include aspects of the Brazilian “favela” such as poverty, crime, and misfortune.
The structure of the book was new to me and it took a little while to get used to the “choppy” movement of paragraphs. I often found myself going back to a previous page to find the paragraph that coincided with the current one I was reading. I did find it a little agitating, but by the end I appreciated the effect it had on me as a reader. It was real; much of our lives happen simultaneously and Traboulsi was able to create that effect successfully by using this choppy format. Traboulsi’s language is simple and direct, so I had no trouble following the narrative, but it was also very beautiful and powerful in places, leaving me with vivid images and gripping emotions.
This novel further educated me about the lives of Brazilians living together in a community, sharing their lives and supporting their dreams, although they are often surrounded by pain and destruction. “Bahia Blues” is the real thing; no sugarcoating or optimistic elaboration, but rather telling us how it is in a "favela." Yet, as I said in my passage, I do feel that of the Brazilian literature I have read, there is something in common. There is this never-ending desire to reach for something better, something that holds a sense of hope for all that seek it despite the pain and suffering. And, there is a sense of community in “the square” of Bahia, a sense that everyone is family and that everyone needs to be loved no matter the circumstances. I picked out aspects of Brazilian life that we had often discussed in my Literature course, such as the idea of fortune-tellers like Mama Lourdes and the influential role they play in society. It reminded me of Machado d’Assis’ short story “The Fortune Teller,” where the fate of two young lovers is in the hands of her magic. I also recognized the power of soap-operas and how the banality of Brazilian life is colored and heightened by the melodramatic TV soaps, bringing to screen the familial life “behind closed doors” that no one ever talks about. “Bahia Blues” left me, yet again, with a disturbing feeling that I remember feeling after many of the Brazilian works I’ve read thus far. Yet, there is something very powerful that I get from these works that goes much deeper than the pain and suffering of the circumstances. It is a feeling of survival; of people overcoming aspects of life that often seem unbelievable. I admire Traboulsi’s strength to create these story lines, ones that may ring very close to a life she knows and understands, even though she grew up in Paris. It makes me feel like reading about suffering and poverty is one of the best ways to truly understand it, acknowledge it exists, and feel motivated to go out and change it.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Bill bo' blanksy
It’s hard to write about a feeling that seems so inherent in humans. And it’s even harder to recognize that this feeling exists, considering it comes so naturally. I’m searching for the best word to describe this feeling and I’m having a hard time picking one, so here…
My husband and I got a puppy over Christmas. He was only seven weeks old, fur-balled and wobbly, soft as cashmere with gigantic floppy paws. He peed all over my husband Stevie, on the car ride home, burrowing his moist black nose deep into the armpit of his sweatshirt. The anxiety of leaving everything he had ever known in the straggly hay corner of a massive wooden barn, his fox-red mother and six siblings still finding their way to the food bowl together like a herd of sheep.
Bill was a rather independent puppy. The first few nights we had him, we took turns getting up every few hours he cried, carried him down the steep back steps of my parents’ house, groggy-eyed and stumbling to the back door so he could step outside into the calm cold of early morning, tinkling as he faltered onto the frozen grass. But, he learned very quickly to sleep through the night and was fearless when it came to exploration.
Stevie immediately commented on the maternal instinct in me, always checking Bill when he napped to make sure he was still breathing, googl-ing the color and consistency of his poop to make sure it seemed normal. This was technically my first puppy (my parents had raised a Bichon when I was in college), and even I was unsure of how I would behave. I was surprised at how effortlessly I “rallied” to take care of something much smaller and more confused than me, willing to interrupt my vacation night’s sleep, walk through the woods in the rain, wipe up every pee-piddle that meandered throughout a room, just to create a happy world for this little life that I felt utterly responsible for.
Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, or maybe it’s because I want to have babies, but I never stop thinking about Bill’s mother, how we picked him up from his litter, snuggled him into our necks and took him away. I feel like I owe it somehow to his mother, to nature, to take care of him the best possible way I can.
He is five months now. Growing like crazy, long and lanky and still unsure of his own body. He wakes up full of piss and vinegar and goes flying into the wall with energy, ready to climb a mountain or swim a mile. His soft-smitten cry wakes my up every morning, ready to pee and ready to poop. He forces me to get up and go outside, to that wonderfully pristine moment just after daybreak when even 5th avenue and Penn are so silent you can hear the trees bend. I can’t imagine now what it would be like not to have this life in mine.
Thank you Bill, for waking me up early. Thank you Bill, for providing me with responsibility. Thank you Bill, for reminding me of how important it can be to devote your thoughts and actions to someone else. Thank you Bill for spinning next to me as you search for the perfect spot, plopping against my leg, your lion paw resting tenderly on my thigh.
My husband and I got a puppy over Christmas. He was only seven weeks old, fur-balled and wobbly, soft as cashmere with gigantic floppy paws. He peed all over my husband Stevie, on the car ride home, burrowing his moist black nose deep into the armpit of his sweatshirt. The anxiety of leaving everything he had ever known in the straggly hay corner of a massive wooden barn, his fox-red mother and six siblings still finding their way to the food bowl together like a herd of sheep.
Bill was a rather independent puppy. The first few nights we had him, we took turns getting up every few hours he cried, carried him down the steep back steps of my parents’ house, groggy-eyed and stumbling to the back door so he could step outside into the calm cold of early morning, tinkling as he faltered onto the frozen grass. But, he learned very quickly to sleep through the night and was fearless when it came to exploration.
Stevie immediately commented on the maternal instinct in me, always checking Bill when he napped to make sure he was still breathing, googl-ing the color and consistency of his poop to make sure it seemed normal. This was technically my first puppy (my parents had raised a Bichon when I was in college), and even I was unsure of how I would behave. I was surprised at how effortlessly I “rallied” to take care of something much smaller and more confused than me, willing to interrupt my vacation night’s sleep, walk through the woods in the rain, wipe up every pee-piddle that meandered throughout a room, just to create a happy world for this little life that I felt utterly responsible for.
Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, or maybe it’s because I want to have babies, but I never stop thinking about Bill’s mother, how we picked him up from his litter, snuggled him into our necks and took him away. I feel like I owe it somehow to his mother, to nature, to take care of him the best possible way I can.
He is five months now. Growing like crazy, long and lanky and still unsure of his own body. He wakes up full of piss and vinegar and goes flying into the wall with energy, ready to climb a mountain or swim a mile. His soft-smitten cry wakes my up every morning, ready to pee and ready to poop. He forces me to get up and go outside, to that wonderfully pristine moment just after daybreak when even 5th avenue and Penn are so silent you can hear the trees bend. I can’t imagine now what it would be like not to have this life in mine.
Thank you Bill, for waking me up early. Thank you Bill, for providing me with responsibility. Thank you Bill, for reminding me of how important it can be to devote your thoughts and actions to someone else. Thank you Bill for spinning next to me as you search for the perfect spot, plopping against my leg, your lion paw resting tenderly on my thigh.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
A Piece of Vision Statement
I think, like Sanders, I have a lot of developmental moments in my life that have led me to want to become a writer. In Janice’s response to my last blog, she asked me about my “vision statement,” about what drives me to write. And I know it’s something most writing professors ask, something I’ve written about in craft workshop, but I am realizing that I don’t think young writers really know what drives us, or why we really write. I think that writing will show us what makes us beat, will reveal our inner drives that spill and spew out of us, landing up as words on paper, once thoughts now forms.
I used to be an athlete. I used to get high from the sound of a field-hockey ball “pinging” against the back of the goal cage. I used to get turned on by finishing suicides and feeling the sweat drip down my back, tickling my pumping muscles. I used to know what drove me, what passion motivated my game. I used to grip a long wooden stick and direct its quick finite movements against a soft-mowed lawn, driving the ball, to the square of stirring netting.
I don’t play anymore. I can’t due to injuries. But I think I know at least one of the reasons why I write. I write to get high, to get turned on by the writing exercises I finish, to discover what passions step up my game. I think I’m comforted by gripping a pen and directing it in quick finite movements against a soft-sheeted paper, driving the pen, into the window of my stirring mind.
I used to be an athlete. I used to get high from the sound of a field-hockey ball “pinging” against the back of the goal cage. I used to get turned on by finishing suicides and feeling the sweat drip down my back, tickling my pumping muscles. I used to know what drove me, what passion motivated my game. I used to grip a long wooden stick and direct its quick finite movements against a soft-mowed lawn, driving the ball, to the square of stirring netting.
I don’t play anymore. I can’t due to injuries. But I think I know at least one of the reasons why I write. I write to get high, to get turned on by the writing exercises I finish, to discover what passions step up my game. I think I’m comforted by gripping a pen and directing it in quick finite movements against a soft-sheeted paper, driving the pen, into the window of my stirring mind.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
From Country to Iran to Me
Everyday, I find myself thinking about what to write about, what to try to show through language and form, about me and my life that is interesting and relative to others, and I am often stuck. As I was reading Scott Russell Sanders “The Country of Language” I was pleasantly comforted by his simple and at times almost obvious statements that I connected to, not only as someone greatly influenced by the natural world, family and teaching, but as a writer who is constantly searching for a unique way of expression. Sanders lays out in very clear and organized chapters pivotal moments in his life that he acknowledges for leading him to where he is today. I thought about all the influential moments that I find crucial in my development as a writer, and I discovered that a lot of them crossed similar themes as Sanders. I don’t think it is the detailed accounts that make us writers want to find a way to talk to the world; I think there is something in the nature, or personality of a person that lights up from inside, a communication of sorts that wants to be heard.
As I sat and listened to Marjane Satrapi speak at the Carnegie Music Hall Monday night, I found myself thinking of Sanders, and how similar these too were as writers. Although from completely different worlds with completely different developmental moments, it seems the message is clear. They both want to find a way, to tell a story, one that may be different culturally or stylistically, but that in the end ultimately screams for peace: “And I decided I would try to build things up instead of tearing them down; I would try to make discoveries and bring useful new gifts into the world, instead of consuming what was already here; I would work against cruelty and suffering; I would help make peace.”
I realize with that in mind, I can sit down stress-free, not thinking about publication or career-goals or grades, knowing that to be a part of something that big and wonderful, is writer enough for me.
As I sat and listened to Marjane Satrapi speak at the Carnegie Music Hall Monday night, I found myself thinking of Sanders, and how similar these too were as writers. Although from completely different worlds with completely different developmental moments, it seems the message is clear. They both want to find a way, to tell a story, one that may be different culturally or stylistically, but that in the end ultimately screams for peace: “And I decided I would try to build things up instead of tearing them down; I would try to make discoveries and bring useful new gifts into the world, instead of consuming what was already here; I would work against cruelty and suffering; I would help make peace.”
I realize with that in mind, I can sit down stress-free, not thinking about publication or career-goals or grades, knowing that to be a part of something that big and wonderful, is writer enough for me.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Lauren Slater and "Lying"
For the sake of not revealing too much of the presentation Kate, Janice and I have prepared for class, I’ve decided to focus on just my experience reading Lauren Slater’s "Lying," keeping the research and conclusions I’ve found for class discussion. (because there is so much!!!)
From the beginning, I felt extremely engaged in this book and I had a hard time putting it down. I think as a reader, I was influenced by the fact that we would be discussing this book, and so I read through it more meticulously than I would had I just been reading it for pleasure. I think I would have found it more of a “fun” read had it been solely for pleasure. I found myself treating the book like a puzzle, constantly looking for hints and clues that would better help me understand the reality of Slater’s content. I became a little obsessed with trying to figure out if she was “lying” or not. And rightly so, I think that was her goal/intention.
I feel like this book is a sort of coming-of-age book, tracing the adolescence (age 10-19) of a young girl who is trying to cope with the difficulties that come from a narcissistic mother, an indifferent father, and a variety of mental illness symptoms. Like any teenager, she is lost in a constructed society, confused in her sexuality, and desperate for what all humans want: attention and affection. As a writer, Slater decides to use epilepsy as a metaphor to describe all the good and bad senses and emotions she experiences growing up, ones that open a window into the brain of a rather damaged and perplexing mind.
Although Slater fills this book with an incredible amount of fascination information (that in itself makes this an interesting read), she proves herself to be an incredible writer as well. There were many passages I highlighted because of the beautiful language and lyricism she brought to a page. Although these passages would sometimes be right in the middle of a crazy experience, they kept me grounded to her voice and as a writer, pleasantly engaged. Her ability to run in and out of her “adolescent” voice and “adult” voice was very fluid, insightful, and something I find difficult to do.
Slater wanted to blur the boundaries between fiction/non-fiction, memoir/novel, fact/truth, and I think she was extremely adventurous and determined to make that happen. There is a lot of controversy over the genre of this book, and if it does in fact constitute a memoir, which I will talk about in class. But what was important for me, didn’t involve nit picking for the facts or looking for answers. It was the expression of an individual who wanted to tell her story in the best way she knew how; something I found refreshing, ingenious, and bold. To me, that is what memoir is all about.
From the beginning, I felt extremely engaged in this book and I had a hard time putting it down. I think as a reader, I was influenced by the fact that we would be discussing this book, and so I read through it more meticulously than I would had I just been reading it for pleasure. I think I would have found it more of a “fun” read had it been solely for pleasure. I found myself treating the book like a puzzle, constantly looking for hints and clues that would better help me understand the reality of Slater’s content. I became a little obsessed with trying to figure out if she was “lying” or not. And rightly so, I think that was her goal/intention.
I feel like this book is a sort of coming-of-age book, tracing the adolescence (age 10-19) of a young girl who is trying to cope with the difficulties that come from a narcissistic mother, an indifferent father, and a variety of mental illness symptoms. Like any teenager, she is lost in a constructed society, confused in her sexuality, and desperate for what all humans want: attention and affection. As a writer, Slater decides to use epilepsy as a metaphor to describe all the good and bad senses and emotions she experiences growing up, ones that open a window into the brain of a rather damaged and perplexing mind.
Although Slater fills this book with an incredible amount of fascination information (that in itself makes this an interesting read), she proves herself to be an incredible writer as well. There were many passages I highlighted because of the beautiful language and lyricism she brought to a page. Although these passages would sometimes be right in the middle of a crazy experience, they kept me grounded to her voice and as a writer, pleasantly engaged. Her ability to run in and out of her “adolescent” voice and “adult” voice was very fluid, insightful, and something I find difficult to do.
Slater wanted to blur the boundaries between fiction/non-fiction, memoir/novel, fact/truth, and I think she was extremely adventurous and determined to make that happen. There is a lot of controversy over the genre of this book, and if it does in fact constitute a memoir, which I will talk about in class. But what was important for me, didn’t involve nit picking for the facts or looking for answers. It was the expression of an individual who wanted to tell her story in the best way she knew how; something I found refreshing, ingenious, and bold. To me, that is what memoir is all about.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Meemaw Part II
I was always so amazed by Meemaw, amazed at who she was when she was living, but even more amazed at what I discovered about her after she died: the things I could only understand at an older age. At 19, she had her period for over 12 months. The doctor’s injected her with sheep’s ova, and a year later she was diagnosed with clinical depression and bipolar disorder. She was forced to drop out of college, and admitted into two different mental institutions after having a manic episode. She blamed the sheep (and I do, too). At 21 she developed tuberculosis and had to have one of her lungs collapsed. Within the same year, she escaped from Shepherd Pratt Institution by breaking through her screen window and running home. Years later, she told my dad that one day she felt the depression lifting off of her, and she knew if she didn’t take control of it now, it would take control of the rest of her life. From that day on, she was without a manic episode for 50 years.
At 26 she married a man named Waller Morton Lewis. One year into their marriage, he walked into a gate, an iron rod that stuck out into an alley. It was dark and he had been drinking heavily. It ruptured his peritoneum, and he bled to death. Just like Houdini. Within a year, she met my grandfather, Jesse Brooks Nichols, but he went by Brooksie. They were married in December 1941 and three weeks later he was shipped to Britain, not returning for three years at the armistice of WWII. They tried to have babies, but the doctors advised her against it as she was too weak from the TB to care for an infant. She had one miscarriage, then my dad, and three miscarriages after him. Brooksie killed himself when my dad was 15, leaving him and Meemaw, yet again, alone.
I never understood how Meemaw did it, how she got through the days, how she kept on living her life after all the difficult times she must have experienced. When I think about all the bad in her life, it’s funny how what I remember of Meemaw is all good: her red lipstick, her slippers, her gold necklace, her soft hair, her cough, her southern accent, her love for crabs, her Christmas lace cookies, her voice. I was so unaware of parts of her life, so ignorant to the pain she must have endured, and as an adult I’m angry and sad, guilty that I never looked at her then the way I would now: with open eyes that want to know how she feels, and what she thinks about, and if she is okay. She was full of optimism, positive energy and a strength that never let her break emotionally. Hers is a story of not just survival, but of conquering the hardest fight of all, human emotion. I want to find a way to tell it.
At 26 she married a man named Waller Morton Lewis. One year into their marriage, he walked into a gate, an iron rod that stuck out into an alley. It was dark and he had been drinking heavily. It ruptured his peritoneum, and he bled to death. Just like Houdini. Within a year, she met my grandfather, Jesse Brooks Nichols, but he went by Brooksie. They were married in December 1941 and three weeks later he was shipped to Britain, not returning for three years at the armistice of WWII. They tried to have babies, but the doctors advised her against it as she was too weak from the TB to care for an infant. She had one miscarriage, then my dad, and three miscarriages after him. Brooksie killed himself when my dad was 15, leaving him and Meemaw, yet again, alone.
I never understood how Meemaw did it, how she got through the days, how she kept on living her life after all the difficult times she must have experienced. When I think about all the bad in her life, it’s funny how what I remember of Meemaw is all good: her red lipstick, her slippers, her gold necklace, her soft hair, her cough, her southern accent, her love for crabs, her Christmas lace cookies, her voice. I was so unaware of parts of her life, so ignorant to the pain she must have endured, and as an adult I’m angry and sad, guilty that I never looked at her then the way I would now: with open eyes that want to know how she feels, and what she thinks about, and if she is okay. She was full of optimism, positive energy and a strength that never let her break emotionally. Hers is a story of not just survival, but of conquering the hardest fight of all, human emotion. I want to find a way to tell it.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Meemaw Part I
As the weather turns warmer, I remember my grandma, Grace Ashton Nichols. She was my father’s mom and we called her Meemaw (which is “Mommy” backwards phonetically.) She always loved the hot weather. The hottest days in July are when I remember her most, stirring sweetened iced-tea on her back porch in Baltimore. Meemaw died when I was in the fourth grade. She was 79. Both of my mother’s parents are still alive, and as a child I never understood why Meemaw was so much older looking than them. I hadn’t figured that she had given birth to my dad in her 40’s, which was rather old for a woman of her time.
Meemaw was extremely intelligent. She scored so high on every test she ever took that her educators labeled her a genius. She worked with retarded people most of her life. She was bipolar and manic-depressive, which I find fascinating that so often sick people help other sick people. After she had a heat stroke, and ended up in the hospital, my dad decided it was time that she moved to Carlisle, PA so that he could take care of her. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment a few blocks from our house and every Wednesday, my mom would pick up my younger sister and me from elementary school and drop us off at Meemaw’s. I remember chicken nuggets and biscuits. She had a small brown and yellow kitchen, and she’d heat up dinner and make iced tea in tall smooth glasses with green and yellow flowers painted on them. She used to help me with my math homework when I was in the 3rd grade. She was so patient and calm, but I would get so angry and frustrated that I would yell at her. I knew she was so much smarter than me and I always felt guilty after I’d storm out of the room, leaving the shortbread cookies half eaten that she had brought in to share with me.
She let my sister and me dress up in her old silk pajamas. My favorite one was long and peach, with a little lace at the top that showed off my bare shoulders. She even let me put on her emerald broche, along with clip-on pearl earrings and sometimes even a squirt of her perfume. Her vanity smelled like mothballs and musk, a scent I still sometimes smell, opening random trunks of her old things that still scatter my parents’ house. We would dance around in circles, practicing our ballet moves and singing into the small living room full of knick-knacks as we watched the “Lawrence Welk” show on her large TV. She let us fall asleep in her shiny maple-framed bed, as she rubbed my back with alcohol, singing in a low husky voice. I don’t remember which songs…
Meemaw was extremely intelligent. She scored so high on every test she ever took that her educators labeled her a genius. She worked with retarded people most of her life. She was bipolar and manic-depressive, which I find fascinating that so often sick people help other sick people. After she had a heat stroke, and ended up in the hospital, my dad decided it was time that she moved to Carlisle, PA so that he could take care of her. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment a few blocks from our house and every Wednesday, my mom would pick up my younger sister and me from elementary school and drop us off at Meemaw’s. I remember chicken nuggets and biscuits. She had a small brown and yellow kitchen, and she’d heat up dinner and make iced tea in tall smooth glasses with green and yellow flowers painted on them. She used to help me with my math homework when I was in the 3rd grade. She was so patient and calm, but I would get so angry and frustrated that I would yell at her. I knew she was so much smarter than me and I always felt guilty after I’d storm out of the room, leaving the shortbread cookies half eaten that she had brought in to share with me.
She let my sister and me dress up in her old silk pajamas. My favorite one was long and peach, with a little lace at the top that showed off my bare shoulders. She even let me put on her emerald broche, along with clip-on pearl earrings and sometimes even a squirt of her perfume. Her vanity smelled like mothballs and musk, a scent I still sometimes smell, opening random trunks of her old things that still scatter my parents’ house. We would dance around in circles, practicing our ballet moves and singing into the small living room full of knick-knacks as we watched the “Lawrence Welk” show on her large TV. She let us fall asleep in her shiny maple-framed bed, as she rubbed my back with alcohol, singing in a low husky voice. I don’t remember which songs…
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Seven-Year Old Nightmare
It is one of my scariest memories. I was seven and my sister, Molly, was nine. We lived in a three-story duplex house on a small street in Carlisle, the town where I grew up. I shared a room with my younger sister, Tessa. We had bunk beds that stuck out into the middle of the room, surrounded by plush blue carpet and close enough to the closet that a train of toys and clothes always seemed to pile up between the bunks and the closet door.
I remember it was a Saturday morning. My parents were downstairs cleaning the house, really cleaning it: mopping the floors, dusting and Murphy-oiling the furniture, vacuuming every room, even Windex-ing the windows. My dad was having an English Department party for the college where he was a professor. Molly and I were up in my room playing “concentration camp.” Now, I know that sounds weird, but we used to pretend that we were Jews during the Nazi regime and that the top bunk was our designated sleeping spot. We had to hide from the Nazis in the middle of the night so that they wouldn’t find us in the morning and take us to the showers.
I don’t know how much I actually knew about the Holocaust at age seven; I know it was later in elementary school that I went to the Holocaust Museum and learned all about the Germans and the Nazis and this horrendous time in history. Molly was really smart and knew all about it, so being the passionate little girls that we were, I think we somehow wanted to be a part of this tragedy, maybe to understand, maybe to try and sympathize.
We turned out the lights, grabbed our flashlights and crawled down from the top bunk. We used the mound of clothes between the bed and the closet as an imaginary trench that we crept along until we reached the closet door. This was the best hiding place ever. The Nazi’s didn’t know it was there and we could hide safely “until morning” with our flashlights dim. We scurried into the closet, whispering to stay quiet and found yet another mound of clothes to sit on. We could hear Crosby, Stills, and Nash blaring downstairs.
We pulled our knees up into our chests and pretended like we were finally safe. What I did next is about to make this moment one of the scariest in my life. The duplex was an old house with Victorian style doors that only latched from the outside, meaning there was no handle or lock on the inside, just a small square fixture with a tiny t-shaped handle that you turned from the outside to open and close the door. I pulled the door almost closed so there was still some light coming in from the outside window.
“Libba, the Nazis will see us if that light can come in,” Molly said to me.
“I know, I know,” I replied. “I will try to close it even more.”
My goal was to shut it just enough so no light could come in, but not enough that it would latch. I slid my fingers underneath the door and pulled, but it still opened slightly. Too much. I pulled, and it did it again. Frustrated, I pulled harder and suddenly, it latched. Darkness.
“Libba!” Molly cried. “Why did you shut the door?”
I reached up above and pulled the string to turn on the light bulb. Her soft face was terrified.
“I didn’t mean to shut it! It just slammed! What are we going to do?”
For a moment we panicked. Then we started screaming. “Mama! Papa! Tessa!” we cried over and over again. “Help us!” We even started crying in unison because we figured it would be louder that way. “Ok, one, two, three…Mamaaaaaaaaa!” Nothing. All we could hear was the upbeat melody of “St. Peppers’ Lonely Heart's Club Band.”
“Libba, I can’t breathe. We don’t have a lot of oxygen in here.”
“It’s okay, Molly. Ok, ok, we’re gonna be fine. Where is Tessa?” Seconds passed as we looked around the closet for something that could pry open the door. This was a small closet. There were clothes hanging, clothes piled up on either side, toys and stuffed animals behind me, and Molly and I were squeezed in next to each other freaking out that we were going to suffocate.
I remember a feeling of heroism came over me. Molly was the smart, logical one but she was panicking. I was the strong athletic one and I felt like I needed to get us out. I found a Mouse Trap game underneath me and pulled out all the plastic pieces that make up the board. “Ok, Molly don’t worry. I’m going to use this piece to pry open the door.” I attempted to open the door. Of course a piece of plastic had no chance against the thick wood, but I was determined. I grabbed a hanger and uncoiled the hook, shoving it into the crack and pulling with all my might.
“Papaaaaaaaa! Mamaaaaaa! Help us! We’re locked in the closet!” we kept yelling over and over and over. Eventually we just started screaming. No words. Just shouts, hoping someone would hear us over the music. Why did they have to be cleaning the house on this Saturday?
What felt like an hour, and the nearing end of our short-lived lives, was probably about five minutes. I don’t remember how much more screaming we did, but I remember the fear. I remember breathing in and out, slow, heavy breaths, trying to get as much air as I could because I thought we were going to die. Tears were streaming down our faces, sweat was beading on the back of our necks. We grabbed each other’s hands and kept saying how much we loved one another.
“Libba? Molly?”
A voice. It was Tessa!
“Tessa, Tessa, we’re in here. We’re in the closet in our room, help!”
Tessa ran in and tried to turn the latch. “Open it!” we cried.
She was too little to get the latch so she ran and got Papa. He rushed back upstairs with her and opened the closet door. Molly and I burst out and hugged his side.
“Oh my god, where were you? We were stuck in there for hours and we thought we were going to die!”
It’s weird how an imaginary world completely fabricated in our young minds could leave us with such a real emotion. I hadn’t thought about it at the time, not at all; I was just happy to be breathing air from outside the closet. But, to think we were in that closet, genuinely fearful of our lives, our seven and nine-year old innocent lives, believing they were about to end just like the victims of the Holocaust, is creepy. That was the last time I remember playing “concentration camp.”
I remember it was a Saturday morning. My parents were downstairs cleaning the house, really cleaning it: mopping the floors, dusting and Murphy-oiling the furniture, vacuuming every room, even Windex-ing the windows. My dad was having an English Department party for the college where he was a professor. Molly and I were up in my room playing “concentration camp.” Now, I know that sounds weird, but we used to pretend that we were Jews during the Nazi regime and that the top bunk was our designated sleeping spot. We had to hide from the Nazis in the middle of the night so that they wouldn’t find us in the morning and take us to the showers.
I don’t know how much I actually knew about the Holocaust at age seven; I know it was later in elementary school that I went to the Holocaust Museum and learned all about the Germans and the Nazis and this horrendous time in history. Molly was really smart and knew all about it, so being the passionate little girls that we were, I think we somehow wanted to be a part of this tragedy, maybe to understand, maybe to try and sympathize.
We turned out the lights, grabbed our flashlights and crawled down from the top bunk. We used the mound of clothes between the bed and the closet as an imaginary trench that we crept along until we reached the closet door. This was the best hiding place ever. The Nazi’s didn’t know it was there and we could hide safely “until morning” with our flashlights dim. We scurried into the closet, whispering to stay quiet and found yet another mound of clothes to sit on. We could hear Crosby, Stills, and Nash blaring downstairs.
We pulled our knees up into our chests and pretended like we were finally safe. What I did next is about to make this moment one of the scariest in my life. The duplex was an old house with Victorian style doors that only latched from the outside, meaning there was no handle or lock on the inside, just a small square fixture with a tiny t-shaped handle that you turned from the outside to open and close the door. I pulled the door almost closed so there was still some light coming in from the outside window.
“Libba, the Nazis will see us if that light can come in,” Molly said to me.
“I know, I know,” I replied. “I will try to close it even more.”
My goal was to shut it just enough so no light could come in, but not enough that it would latch. I slid my fingers underneath the door and pulled, but it still opened slightly. Too much. I pulled, and it did it again. Frustrated, I pulled harder and suddenly, it latched. Darkness.
“Libba!” Molly cried. “Why did you shut the door?”
I reached up above and pulled the string to turn on the light bulb. Her soft face was terrified.
“I didn’t mean to shut it! It just slammed! What are we going to do?”
For a moment we panicked. Then we started screaming. “Mama! Papa! Tessa!” we cried over and over again. “Help us!” We even started crying in unison because we figured it would be louder that way. “Ok, one, two, three…Mamaaaaaaaaa!” Nothing. All we could hear was the upbeat melody of “St. Peppers’ Lonely Heart's Club Band.”
“Libba, I can’t breathe. We don’t have a lot of oxygen in here.”
“It’s okay, Molly. Ok, ok, we’re gonna be fine. Where is Tessa?” Seconds passed as we looked around the closet for something that could pry open the door. This was a small closet. There were clothes hanging, clothes piled up on either side, toys and stuffed animals behind me, and Molly and I were squeezed in next to each other freaking out that we were going to suffocate.
I remember a feeling of heroism came over me. Molly was the smart, logical one but she was panicking. I was the strong athletic one and I felt like I needed to get us out. I found a Mouse Trap game underneath me and pulled out all the plastic pieces that make up the board. “Ok, Molly don’t worry. I’m going to use this piece to pry open the door.” I attempted to open the door. Of course a piece of plastic had no chance against the thick wood, but I was determined. I grabbed a hanger and uncoiled the hook, shoving it into the crack and pulling with all my might.
“Papaaaaaaaa! Mamaaaaaa! Help us! We’re locked in the closet!” we kept yelling over and over and over. Eventually we just started screaming. No words. Just shouts, hoping someone would hear us over the music. Why did they have to be cleaning the house on this Saturday?
What felt like an hour, and the nearing end of our short-lived lives, was probably about five minutes. I don’t remember how much more screaming we did, but I remember the fear. I remember breathing in and out, slow, heavy breaths, trying to get as much air as I could because I thought we were going to die. Tears were streaming down our faces, sweat was beading on the back of our necks. We grabbed each other’s hands and kept saying how much we loved one another.
“Libba? Molly?”
A voice. It was Tessa!
“Tessa, Tessa, we’re in here. We’re in the closet in our room, help!”
Tessa ran in and tried to turn the latch. “Open it!” we cried.
She was too little to get the latch so she ran and got Papa. He rushed back upstairs with her and opened the closet door. Molly and I burst out and hugged his side.
“Oh my god, where were you? We were stuck in there for hours and we thought we were going to die!”
It’s weird how an imaginary world completely fabricated in our young minds could leave us with such a real emotion. I hadn’t thought about it at the time, not at all; I was just happy to be breathing air from outside the closet. But, to think we were in that closet, genuinely fearful of our lives, our seven and nine-year old innocent lives, believing they were about to end just like the victims of the Holocaust, is creepy. That was the last time I remember playing “concentration camp.”
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