Nia, You know what I feel, all my life, when I'm back, embedded in the land I opened my eyes in. It doesn't belong to you, but it holds us, you belong, a part of it, attached to all that speaks ( the water? Light? the smell of Chinook win?), and what you cannot name. Existence is the encompassing miracle. What industrialism, capitalism.is, is a kind of magical thinking (that law) that pretends reality is - nothing, trivial, annihilated, compared to the claims of greed and money. Yet we find ourselves forced to fight, within the terms that wealth and arbitrary power recognize, for the continued existence of all that has nurtured life since all beginnings. The great strength of the tribes is that they have never forgotten where and who they are. I think people, like animals, know when they belong within a place. As you say, you feel gratitude, and the need to give back, as much as you can. No wonder some speak of civilization as full of hungry ghosts, destroying everything around them.
Hungry ghosts feels like the best description I've yet seen. Maybe that's where the idea of a Devil came from in Christianity, really. Those who always wanted more more more, more than any life way could bear.
I am reading this belatedly, for reasons that the essay itself describes well - kids, family crises, a to-do list that never shrinks. But I wanted to tell you how much it resonates with me, as someone who also integrates family and relationship into genres that often prefer the individual hero or adult team, in my case speculative fiction. In nature writing, so much seems to be modeled off of On Walden Pond, even as Thoreau himself had important and little-discussed political reasons for obfuscating the relationships and politics in which he was embedded.
You are so right. It's why I liked Camille Dungy's book so much, because there has been almost nothing I've read that writes about being nature beyond one person's -- usually a man's -- experience of it, alone. I'm really glad this resonated with you, and solidarity on those lists and responsibilities! Every time you think you can slow down, something else comes up to surprise you ...
As a new dad this post was what I needed to read. Working on the second draft of my novel, (it's so close to where I can share it!) I like writing first thing in the morning, before work. However, I have a 1-year old who loves to wake up at 5am and seize the day. I read this post in short bursts at 5:30am, taking a break every time my daughter wanted me to read her a book, or pickup something she had dropped behind the couch. Some mornings I find myself feeling resentful, which then immediately leads to guilt for feeling resentful. She's only one. She loves waking up and looking for magpies on the front lawn, she loves crawling (or now walking!) through the backyard, stroking the lilac leaves and playing in the mulch. Why is my writing (or reading) more important than that? It's comforting to read your work Antonia, to hear the struggles of parenting and writing (not to mention trying to understand the broken world we live in), and know that finding the time to help ourselves and help others will is a problem we share. Thank you.
I am so glad to read this! Well, okay, not glad for your sake because I remember vividly what that was like, trying to keep my mind intact and feel a sense of purpose that wasn't totally dependent on parenting. Which is hard to talk about, even, because people think you're complaining and it isn't complaining! It's struggling with a situation that is very difficult and is structurally imposed through lives that have had interdependence designed out of them. It's trying to connect with people whose experiences are similar so we can at least commiserate if not come up with solutions. I had many, many hours of feeling resentful when my kids were little, followed by guilt about feeling resentful. They're in the pre/teen years now, and I'm afraid it hasn't changed, just changed form with a lot more emotional demands. I'm still struggling with all of that.
In an essay I wrote about motherhood (parenthood) and writing for Tin House, I included those realities: that while I was trying to revise the essay while my toddler played, he instantly came over and started driving Percy the red train engine on my arm. And when I was doing final revisions, my kids were a few years older (that's how long this all takes me) and building a blanket fort next to me while I worked at the kitchen table. We *can* do these things; that doesn't mean the structure of our days is easy or ideal.
I'm glad to read about your novel! That is HUGE. I hope you take a few moments to celebrate for yourself when you feel that moment of stage-completion, even if it's just a hot cup of coffee (or whatever your morning beverage is) by yourself one day when your daughter sleeps in until 5:20. (Having one HOT cup of coffee per day was my big desire when my kids were little. Crazy how difficult it is to achieve that.)
Maybe mothers can’t write about nature in a way that excludes other humans because they don’t have days that exclude other humans!! Wow. This post was just wow. I will be thinking about this for days. Thank you! And I wrote a bit about reciprocity this week and your words about just wanting others to care was so tender and true. It also reminded me of when I read the salt path and how raynor winn made a concerted effort to write about the housing crisis she and many were experiencing and the multilayers of injustice and stigma around homelessness. I was caught off guard by it but also pleasantly surprised because so many writing memoirs have the “fly fishing” feel to them - just off alone in nature, separate from whatever else is going on in the world - but not her book. I am adding Soil to my list. Thank you!
I think Soil might speak to you for many reasons! And I have to thank you -- I actually bought The Salt Path for two friends when it first came out, but didn't get a copy for myself and have never read it. I bought it after hearing an interview with Winn and was so impressed with the way she talked about the role of societal conditions in health, depression, and the kinds of choices our lives can give us. Thank you, Lindsey! 🧡
I love everything you wrote—and how Dungy is able to speak to what is so tired and always missing in nature writing. I loved this so much—“ it’s about people and place, people in place, people with place, people of place.” YES. I am also struggling with the questions i have around demands for attention, growth, and how care seems to never be a priority but a hidden margin that somehow others are supposed to tackle. What would it look like to solve all inequities with care—how simple that really is, how impossibly complicated the human created world makes it. It’s very less lonely in those feelings knowing you and so many others are also operating and thinking about and writing so beautifully on all of this. 💜
I think you will like this book, Freya. I thought of you and your work and longer project several times as I was reading it. Though I was taken aback at her lingering quite a bit in the latter half on the work of naturalist Thomas Nuttall, a white Englishman who gave European names to so many plants of the western U.S. I'm still confused about the focus on him but might have missed something I need to go back and read.
"What would it look like to solve all inequities with care?" -- the question so many of us ask all the time, and, as you say, it is so much less lonely knowing others are not only struggling with it, but refusing to give up on its possibility. 🧡
I think you'll like Dungy's book! I finished it this weekend, in tears and so grateful.
And yes the dandelions! Among other things, it's about the earliest possible food we have for hungry bees. I'm always delighted to see them out browsing around. On the other hand, the knapweed flowers later in the year when they're also short on food, and I'm not grateful for it but feel bad uprooting it when they're foraging. You can't win!
My garden is also late going in, but ... so much is coming up that's reseeded ... I like to think I'm a follower of the One Seed Revolution, but mostly I'm kind of lazy. Threw in lots of aging greens seeds about March, and at last ... greens. And the asparagus is finally coming up, after 3 years!
I was just discussing asparagus possibilities over the weekend and decided to wait until next year. This is only the second year my garden has anything remotely resembling "soil" rather than pure clay (and whatever parts we keep digging up from when someone used to work on cards there), and I need to figure out where to commit to an asparagus bed. Something to look forward to munching on 3 or 4 years from now! But the raspberries and strawberries are finally producing in quantities large enough to keep my daughter and nieces occupied most days, which honestly was my main goal in this whole endeavor. 🍓
I suppose different folks approach this universal conundrum in different ways. But as far back as I can remember, and this was usually when eating a plate of food, I’ve always preferred to save the best for last. I’ve always wanted the finest flavor to be the one that lingers on my palate, the one that lingers in my imagination. Christmas gift opening was the same way. Savor that one special gift (I always knew which one that was) by saving it for last. This peculiar trend has carried over into my adulthood and now colors my approach to many things in life. But, alas, this has nothing to do with anything, so I’ll move on.
Of the several Substack writers I am subscribed to there are three whom I read religiously. And it dawned on me this morning as I was reading your post that they are all women. I didn’t plan it that way. These are just the writers I am most drawn to.
Heather Cox Richardson is a professor and a political historian. She writes a daily recap of political news called “Letters from an American,” usually with an historical perspective. Heather oftentimes includes short anecdotes (and photos) about her recent marriage, or about her kayaking adventures in the coastal waters of Maine, or about her need to sometimes take a little time just to be still and enjoy the beauty that surrounds her.
Joyce Vance is a professor and a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. She writes a daily (usually) post called “Civil Discourse.” On their property in Alabama Joyce and her husband have built, at least what appears to be from the pictures she shares, the finest chicken coup I have ever seen. Along with her excellent synopses of the major legal happenings going on in the Country—which usually includes very helpful analyses, breakdowns, and citations—Joyce will sometimes toss in a paragraph about those fine feathered citizens who populate le poulailler de luxe. I think my favorite is a chicken who proudly goes by the name of Pickles. And by the way, Joyce is also a knitter. We’ve seen photos.
My point here is that these women adding a little off-the-clock everyday life to their postings does not interfere with or diminish their writings in the least. Nor does it dilute the enormous respect I have for them both. On the contrary, it enhances the reading experience. It offers a much-needed counterpoise to that parade of horribles forever marching before our eyes. It adds life and wholeness. And after all, once we get beyond all the facts and figures and foibles, isn’t it life itself that draws us in? Isn’t it life that we’re after?
When I awoke this morning I saw that there were posts from each of my three favorite Substack writers. I saved yours for last.
"These women adding a little off-the-clock everyday life to their postings does not interfere with or diminish their writings in the least." That's a wonderful perspective, and I entirely agree. I actually prefer writing that has some of that in it! A mix of everything, and a reminder that we're all human.
Most people I know read Letters from an American, but I hadn't heard of Joyce Vance. She sounds very interesting (and I have a soft spot for anyone who keeps chickens, which I don't but only because I can't face taking on another task or creature to care for); good legal analysis tends to be an enticing thing for me. Sometimes too enticing, speaking of distractions and time spent.
One thing I'm loving about Dungy is that she has a section writing about how much she likes Willa Cather's novels -- Cather is about my favorite novelist, and it's tickling to think we have that in common.
Writing that includes parenting, much less the realities of being a mother, is honestly so rare it's a bit of a watershed for me to read this. I've been writing publicly for something like 20 years and the question "can you be a mother and a writer?" is only addressed in sporadic essays every few years by maybe one or two writers. The one I wrote years ago, about Elinore Pruitt Stewart and her "Letters of a Woman Homesteader," was in response to one by a fairly well-known novelist who not only wrote that her writing became less important after she had a baby, but seemed to accept that was as it should be -- not the act of her writing or being a writer, but any of her work that included writing about being a mother. I found that so sad and also exasperating. It's a relief to read someone who's willing to talk about the complexity of it -- made more difficult by societal structures that don't support people at all, much less parents -- and who does it so beautifully and without ever pretending like she has to face giving up writing, which honestly comes up a lot of the time. I really appreciate that about this book.
Willa Cather is a wonderful writer. My favorite work of hers is "One of Ours." I read it years ago in a political science class where we explored the intersection between literature and political ideas. That's a class that could have gone on forever.
You might know this already but Claude's character is based on Cather's cousin, who died fighting in France. Her research and interviews for writing the book were intensive and widespread. (Ernest Hemingway was very snide about her Pulitzer win for "One of Ours" because she hadn't personally experienced war.) She was just such an incredible writer. I waffle between my favorite being "Death Comes for the Archbishop" and "O Pioneers!" but Archbishop tends to win out.
It seems like I read that somewhere about Claude's character, but the recollection is nothing more than a soft whisper from somewhere over yonder on a dark and windy night. I'm just not sure I heard it.
As the time passes since my surgery I discover more and more detail that seems to have been washed away from memory. It's a little disconcerting. Luckily some unsavory memories seem to have vanished as well. I wouldn't call that a silver lining, but it's something.
Speaking from experience, I'd say it's a whole heck of a lot harder to take care of yourself while taking care of everyone else, too. I always wonder about life-hacker types who talk about their marathon and other achievements. They often talk about being involved parents, but maybe another question is, is their partner or co-parent (if they have one) also able to achieve marathon-level personal goals?
Thank you for this. 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" has been one of my touchstones for so long, I needed this reframe. Like how we used to think of trees as solitary, but now are beginning to fathom the many ways they are interconnected, in community. As often happens, your writing reminds me of other writing. The brilliant New Yorker piece about Thoreau's not-at-all-solitary "solitary" experiment at Walden, "Pond Scum," by Kathryn Schulz. E.g., his mother and sisters brought him food weekly. The gist: "'Walden' is also fundamentally adolescent in tone: Thoreau shares the conviction, far more developmentally appropriate and forgivable in teens, that everyone else’s certainties are wrong while one’s own are unassailable. Moreover, he presents adulthood not as it is but as kids wishfully imagine it: an idyll of autonomy, unfettered by any civic or familial responsibilities."
The other is "Desert Cabal," Amy Irvine's answer to Edward Abbey's also-constructed solitude. A penetrating imagined conversation with him, this book got her into some trouble with other beloved environmental writers. "How dare she—?"
Gwen and I recently watched the Cape Cod National Seashore's short film about Henry David on Cape Cod. The first comment she made when we walked out of the visitor center was about how arrogant he was. Its hard to imagine that the NPS contractors were told to show that, but they did, and in reflection, it wasn't that subtle. Its probably online somewhere, but if you ever get out there, its worth watching. As for Ed, I remember being overwhelmed when I met him (just once, a very long time ago). Desert Solitaire was fundamental for me in those days. And then struggling, upon reflection, with the adolescent fantasy of The Monkey Wrench Gang. But I do not want - nor do I think any of us want - to be known only for my weaknesses. Its ok to "deconstruct" things, necessary even, but lets not lose too much along the way either. I can laugh at Henry David. If you really want to hear what I have to accept as a long term local view of him, take a tour of the "Old Manse" in Concord. But I also hang a poster that says, "Let the evening overtake thee everywhere at home" on my wall.
I just got to the part of the book where Dungy talks about Desert Cabal and Abbey! There is just so, so much in this book. I think it's one I'm going to have to read again. And she first makes the point that Pilgrim was a touchstone for her for a long time, too (and I enjoyed it when I first read it). I feel like the larger point she might be making isn't that these books shouldn't be written or enjoyed, but that holding them up as THE paragons of environmental writing is a serious problem that affects writing but more than that affects most humans' ability to write about and be in nature. I'll never experience everything Dungy experiences, but there is so much here that speaks to me -- there's nothing like being told that a hike isn't a "Hike" if your 2-year-old you're carrying part of the time is included in the story ... it's no longer nature or environmental writing; it's in the parenting column.
I do love Kathryn Shulz. (I think I read that piece but might be mixing it up with a different one. My favorite of hers is the really horrifying one about stink bugs.) The essay I wrote years ago was about Elinore Pruitt Stewart's "Letters of a Woman Homesteader," which was about her time homesteading and has lots of little stories about being in the Wyoming "wilderness" with her 4-year-old girl. Her letters were published in The Atlantic in the early 1900s as she wrote them, and were hugely popular, but most people have never heard of her even though she was far more intrepid and independent than Thoreau.
"Perhaps the strangest, saddest thing about 'Walden' is that it is a book about how to live that says next to nothing about how to live with other people."
So true! It's bugs me about his book/essay "Walking," too, that he opens it with being contemptuous about people who work in shops all day and also women in general, who have to spend most of their time indoors (as if it was a choice at the time!), never correlating his own ability to spend days walking with freedom that too many other people don't have.
People who are shitty to each other, for example a prominent figure, Ron DeSantis, Trump etc. They seem broken. I always wonder what their childhood was like. What was wrong with their parents! Or do we have to accept that there are just sociopaths at one end of the spectrum and the other end perhaps people who just have it so hard that they can't help but pass that difficulty along?
To your end question: I wish I knew. I wish everyone could receive both the love and the help they need and not pass their own damage on to others. One thing I thought about Trump a long time ago, when he was super active on Twitter, was how much damage you'd have to inflict on a little boy to eventually turn him into a 70-something-year-old man with such a clear and public desperation for the validation of others. My sympathy is all for his victims -- which are legion -- but it does make you start to see that maybe we should take parenting and early childhood experiences more seriously.
To loop back down to my comment below: While there are many paths people stumble along, and many different stories of how we arrive at who were are, I have to wonder if there was a point in which Donny needed to disappear into an unpeopled space and couldn't.
Yes! Wish all the so-called , pro lifers, had as much interest in funding child care, early childhood education and nutrition and why don't we throw in awesome healthcare at the same time? (Sensible gun regulations?) Only then could you convince me somebody is pro-life.
(As if we'd need another motivation to take good care of kids) The massive financial return on investment is well established. That's what kills me about "fiscal conservatives"
Agree 100%. I live in an awfully conservative county, and can tell you that as far as I can see the mindset is pure Christian nationalism. That the only route to a good society that cares for everyone is accepting Christianity in a *very* limited and strictly defined way. It's madness, but it's what the dominant mindset is, and I'm sure this isn't the only area like that.
Oh my goodness. That brings back memories! Congratulations. 💗💗💗 And seriously, I feel you. My youngest is 12 and a lot of this book is really hitting home, still, or maybe more than ever.
Why don’t people care? resonated deeply. I have had that thought but verbalising it like you have brings it to the fore to think more deeply about and act upon my caring.
It's not always easy. My friend's comment "don't disappear" when she was talking about going through cancer is some of the best advice I've ever received. It's often awkward or difficult to know how to help, but that one has been a good guide.
Thank you for all of this, Nia. It hits home at just the right time. I will investigate Dungy's writing further. She was not on my radar. "falsely created scarcity" is a theme that keeps popping up in my own mind. I notice how I am inventing scarcity *all by myself* concerning my time, attention, and plans. Thinking about how this expresses itself in other contexts is both overwhelming and generative. I mean, there's a lot of (too much) grist for the mill, as they say. Anyway, I remain forever grateful for your reflections and generosity. May we all learn to grow in reciprocity.
Oh my goodness, Sherri, what you say here is almost eerie because I've been thinking about how I might be creating scarcity all by myself in exactly those ways. Part of me doesn't want to believe it? Wants to believe that it's all imposed. And a lot of it is, but I think, for me, there might be more I can change than I'd like to admit. And YOU are one of the most generative, reflective, and generous people I know! I *think* you'll like Dungy's book if you read it. I would so love to know your thoughts if you do. I've admired her for a long time but have known her primarily as a poet, and this book is like ... turning over fresh soil in my mind, if that metaphor isn't too on the nose.
I've been thinking about how to defend, or even just explain, the traditional vision/role of wilderness, the un-peopled space, as it was created by [mostly] old white guys. It wasn't un-peopled, of course. I hear everything said here (and in the sources that got me started on this train of thought). But there's jus this argumment which is irreducible for me:
Our society puts incredible pressure on moms. Wow. And so many people are not represented in the fly fishing (which I do not do) version of the wild. I get that, and the rest of the critique. But our society also puts (and always has put) certain pressures on young white guys. And without some unpeopled wilderness in which to disappear for a time, in which to attempt to reduce it all down to something manageable. there are some of us who simply would not be here.
This is very, very true, Lee, and I truly appreciate your pointing it out. I don't want to speak for Dungy, especially as I haven't finished the book, but I think she's talking more about what is considered "canon" in nature and environmental writing, which leaves out so much of life that is really, really important. Vital, even. And the problem is that when canons are created, any stories that don't fit that mold are considered lesser. So the image of "environmental writing" becomes very limited by one single type of experience. There's a lot more to think and say about that, but part of the point is that the expectations of a certain kind of writing as well as a certain kind of experience affect all kinds of people in all kinds of ways and it's not something the literary world in general has attempted to reckon with until recently.
Which is how I'm reading it, anyway. And I hear you on the pressures and the need to disappear. Reading this comment, I immediately thought of Dahr Jamail and Elliott Woods, both writers I admire a huge amount, and both of whom write and talk about the ways in which disappearing into wilderness has kept them alive. Both have intense experiences of war that will never leave them. It strikes me now that the best of this kind of writing -- man/alone/wilderness -- or at least the kind that feels most real and honest and relevant to me, is from people like them who are stuck with that kind of trauma. Even someone like Chris McCandless -- I didn't particularly enjoy or dislike Krakauer's book about him, but I did understand, I think, some of what drove him to seek the wild for himself.
For me specifically, I'm thinking of a few Montana writers, as well as books like Mark Kenyon's "That Wild Country," books that manufacture an image of and relationship with these places that I find really frustrating. But again, the point is more that holding these books or this style of writing up as the only acceptable way of writing about "nature" is incredibly limiting for our understanding of nature and the rest of the human experience. Part of the problem is a factor of the wider one of manufactured scarcity -- only so many books and writers "make it" --which isn't necessarily the fault of the writers, but there are some writers who then become gatekeepers themselves and often don't admit as *valid* experiences and writing that aren't like their own. If that makes sense. Norman Maclean notwithstanding, fly fishing and a certain way of writing about rivers just feels like a current iteration.
I actually do fly fish and enjoy it! Though I grew up only fishing to eat and can't get my head around catch-and-release, which feels cruel to me.
Thanks for your thoughts. I acknowledge that what you say about the world of literature is true. I am not, at least not at the moment, subject to the "rules" writers have to contend with and can focus, as I am inclined to do, on the unity of things, not the slots into which experiencce is too often divided.
Well, you write very well -- and including about humans -- of the environment and environmental issues. And part of Dungy's point, I think, is that she would like to write into the unity of things -- and does -- but divisions are imposed from the outside. (Thinking again here of how often I've been told that travel or environmental writing that included any mention of having my kids with me isn't travel or environment -- it's "parenting.")
Nia, You know what I feel, all my life, when I'm back, embedded in the land I opened my eyes in. It doesn't belong to you, but it holds us, you belong, a part of it, attached to all that speaks ( the water? Light? the smell of Chinook win?), and what you cannot name. Existence is the encompassing miracle. What industrialism, capitalism.is, is a kind of magical thinking (that law) that pretends reality is - nothing, trivial, annihilated, compared to the claims of greed and money. Yet we find ourselves forced to fight, within the terms that wealth and arbitrary power recognize, for the continued existence of all that has nurtured life since all beginnings. The great strength of the tribes is that they have never forgotten where and who they are. I think people, like animals, know when they belong within a place. As you say, you feel gratitude, and the need to give back, as much as you can. No wonder some speak of civilization as full of hungry ghosts, destroying everything around them.
Hungry ghosts feels like the best description I've yet seen. Maybe that's where the idea of a Devil came from in Christianity, really. Those who always wanted more more more, more than any life way could bear.
I am reading this belatedly, for reasons that the essay itself describes well - kids, family crises, a to-do list that never shrinks. But I wanted to tell you how much it resonates with me, as someone who also integrates family and relationship into genres that often prefer the individual hero or adult team, in my case speculative fiction. In nature writing, so much seems to be modeled off of On Walden Pond, even as Thoreau himself had important and little-discussed political reasons for obfuscating the relationships and politics in which he was embedded.
You are so right. It's why I liked Camille Dungy's book so much, because there has been almost nothing I've read that writes about being nature beyond one person's -- usually a man's -- experience of it, alone. I'm really glad this resonated with you, and solidarity on those lists and responsibilities! Every time you think you can slow down, something else comes up to surprise you ...
As a new dad this post was what I needed to read. Working on the second draft of my novel, (it's so close to where I can share it!) I like writing first thing in the morning, before work. However, I have a 1-year old who loves to wake up at 5am and seize the day. I read this post in short bursts at 5:30am, taking a break every time my daughter wanted me to read her a book, or pickup something she had dropped behind the couch. Some mornings I find myself feeling resentful, which then immediately leads to guilt for feeling resentful. She's only one. She loves waking up and looking for magpies on the front lawn, she loves crawling (or now walking!) through the backyard, stroking the lilac leaves and playing in the mulch. Why is my writing (or reading) more important than that? It's comforting to read your work Antonia, to hear the struggles of parenting and writing (not to mention trying to understand the broken world we live in), and know that finding the time to help ourselves and help others will is a problem we share. Thank you.
I am so glad to read this! Well, okay, not glad for your sake because I remember vividly what that was like, trying to keep my mind intact and feel a sense of purpose that wasn't totally dependent on parenting. Which is hard to talk about, even, because people think you're complaining and it isn't complaining! It's struggling with a situation that is very difficult and is structurally imposed through lives that have had interdependence designed out of them. It's trying to connect with people whose experiences are similar so we can at least commiserate if not come up with solutions. I had many, many hours of feeling resentful when my kids were little, followed by guilt about feeling resentful. They're in the pre/teen years now, and I'm afraid it hasn't changed, just changed form with a lot more emotional demands. I'm still struggling with all of that.
In an essay I wrote about motherhood (parenthood) and writing for Tin House, I included those realities: that while I was trying to revise the essay while my toddler played, he instantly came over and started driving Percy the red train engine on my arm. And when I was doing final revisions, my kids were a few years older (that's how long this all takes me) and building a blanket fort next to me while I worked at the kitchen table. We *can* do these things; that doesn't mean the structure of our days is easy or ideal.
I'm glad to read about your novel! That is HUGE. I hope you take a few moments to celebrate for yourself when you feel that moment of stage-completion, even if it's just a hot cup of coffee (or whatever your morning beverage is) by yourself one day when your daughter sleeps in until 5:20. (Having one HOT cup of coffee per day was my big desire when my kids were little. Crazy how difficult it is to achieve that.)
Maybe mothers can’t write about nature in a way that excludes other humans because they don’t have days that exclude other humans!! Wow. This post was just wow. I will be thinking about this for days. Thank you! And I wrote a bit about reciprocity this week and your words about just wanting others to care was so tender and true. It also reminded me of when I read the salt path and how raynor winn made a concerted effort to write about the housing crisis she and many were experiencing and the multilayers of injustice and stigma around homelessness. I was caught off guard by it but also pleasantly surprised because so many writing memoirs have the “fly fishing” feel to them - just off alone in nature, separate from whatever else is going on in the world - but not her book. I am adding Soil to my list. Thank you!
I think Soil might speak to you for many reasons! And I have to thank you -- I actually bought The Salt Path for two friends when it first came out, but didn't get a copy for myself and have never read it. I bought it after hearing an interview with Winn and was so impressed with the way she talked about the role of societal conditions in health, depression, and the kinds of choices our lives can give us. Thank you, Lindsey! 🧡
I love everything you wrote—and how Dungy is able to speak to what is so tired and always missing in nature writing. I loved this so much—“ it’s about people and place, people in place, people with place, people of place.” YES. I am also struggling with the questions i have around demands for attention, growth, and how care seems to never be a priority but a hidden margin that somehow others are supposed to tackle. What would it look like to solve all inequities with care—how simple that really is, how impossibly complicated the human created world makes it. It’s very less lonely in those feelings knowing you and so many others are also operating and thinking about and writing so beautifully on all of this. 💜
I think you will like this book, Freya. I thought of you and your work and longer project several times as I was reading it. Though I was taken aback at her lingering quite a bit in the latter half on the work of naturalist Thomas Nuttall, a white Englishman who gave European names to so many plants of the western U.S. I'm still confused about the focus on him but might have missed something I need to go back and read.
"What would it look like to solve all inequities with care?" -- the question so many of us ask all the time, and, as you say, it is so much less lonely knowing others are not only struggling with it, but refusing to give up on its possibility. 🧡
Hi Nia. There's so, so much to love in this post.
"but more to the point: always enough for everyone."
I'm going to get a copy of Dunby's book today; thank you for introducing me to her writing!
And dandelions!! I've been preaching this for years. I love them and have never understood the ire they raise in misguided folks! <3
I think you'll like Dungy's book! I finished it this weekend, in tears and so grateful.
And yes the dandelions! Among other things, it's about the earliest possible food we have for hungry bees. I'm always delighted to see them out browsing around. On the other hand, the knapweed flowers later in the year when they're also short on food, and I'm not grateful for it but feel bad uprooting it when they're foraging. You can't win!
My garden is also late going in, but ... so much is coming up that's reseeded ... I like to think I'm a follower of the One Seed Revolution, but mostly I'm kind of lazy. Threw in lots of aging greens seeds about March, and at last ... greens. And the asparagus is finally coming up, after 3 years!
I am very lazy definitely!
I was just discussing asparagus possibilities over the weekend and decided to wait until next year. This is only the second year my garden has anything remotely resembling "soil" rather than pure clay (and whatever parts we keep digging up from when someone used to work on cards there), and I need to figure out where to commit to an asparagus bed. Something to look forward to munching on 3 or 4 years from now! But the raspberries and strawberries are finally producing in quantities large enough to keep my daughter and nieces occupied most days, which honestly was my main goal in this whole endeavor. 🍓
We sure do have an unfair share of commodified nature boys writing and podcasting around these parts. Over a beer I bet you and I can agree on names.
Count me in from Livingston ...
Love Spring Creek and the best part, never had to pay to fish it!!
Over a beer and some fishing? 😂 (Which I like! I do like fishing. As long as I can eat what I catch.)
I suppose different folks approach this universal conundrum in different ways. But as far back as I can remember, and this was usually when eating a plate of food, I’ve always preferred to save the best for last. I’ve always wanted the finest flavor to be the one that lingers on my palate, the one that lingers in my imagination. Christmas gift opening was the same way. Savor that one special gift (I always knew which one that was) by saving it for last. This peculiar trend has carried over into my adulthood and now colors my approach to many things in life. But, alas, this has nothing to do with anything, so I’ll move on.
Of the several Substack writers I am subscribed to there are three whom I read religiously. And it dawned on me this morning as I was reading your post that they are all women. I didn’t plan it that way. These are just the writers I am most drawn to.
Heather Cox Richardson is a professor and a political historian. She writes a daily recap of political news called “Letters from an American,” usually with an historical perspective. Heather oftentimes includes short anecdotes (and photos) about her recent marriage, or about her kayaking adventures in the coastal waters of Maine, or about her need to sometimes take a little time just to be still and enjoy the beauty that surrounds her.
Joyce Vance is a professor and a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. She writes a daily (usually) post called “Civil Discourse.” On their property in Alabama Joyce and her husband have built, at least what appears to be from the pictures she shares, the finest chicken coup I have ever seen. Along with her excellent synopses of the major legal happenings going on in the Country—which usually includes very helpful analyses, breakdowns, and citations—Joyce will sometimes toss in a paragraph about those fine feathered citizens who populate le poulailler de luxe. I think my favorite is a chicken who proudly goes by the name of Pickles. And by the way, Joyce is also a knitter. We’ve seen photos.
My point here is that these women adding a little off-the-clock everyday life to their postings does not interfere with or diminish their writings in the least. Nor does it dilute the enormous respect I have for them both. On the contrary, it enhances the reading experience. It offers a much-needed counterpoise to that parade of horribles forever marching before our eyes. It adds life and wholeness. And after all, once we get beyond all the facts and figures and foibles, isn’t it life itself that draws us in? Isn’t it life that we’re after?
When I awoke this morning I saw that there were posts from each of my three favorite Substack writers. I saved yours for last.
This comment takes just over 3 minutes to read.
"These women adding a little off-the-clock everyday life to their postings does not interfere with or diminish their writings in the least." That's a wonderful perspective, and I entirely agree. I actually prefer writing that has some of that in it! A mix of everything, and a reminder that we're all human.
Most people I know read Letters from an American, but I hadn't heard of Joyce Vance. She sounds very interesting (and I have a soft spot for anyone who keeps chickens, which I don't but only because I can't face taking on another task or creature to care for); good legal analysis tends to be an enticing thing for me. Sometimes too enticing, speaking of distractions and time spent.
One thing I'm loving about Dungy is that she has a section writing about how much she likes Willa Cather's novels -- Cather is about my favorite novelist, and it's tickling to think we have that in common.
Writing that includes parenting, much less the realities of being a mother, is honestly so rare it's a bit of a watershed for me to read this. I've been writing publicly for something like 20 years and the question "can you be a mother and a writer?" is only addressed in sporadic essays every few years by maybe one or two writers. The one I wrote years ago, about Elinore Pruitt Stewart and her "Letters of a Woman Homesteader," was in response to one by a fairly well-known novelist who not only wrote that her writing became less important after she had a baby, but seemed to accept that was as it should be -- not the act of her writing or being a writer, but any of her work that included writing about being a mother. I found that so sad and also exasperating. It's a relief to read someone who's willing to talk about the complexity of it -- made more difficult by societal structures that don't support people at all, much less parents -- and who does it so beautifully and without ever pretending like she has to face giving up writing, which honestly comes up a lot of the time. I really appreciate that about this book.
Willa Cather is a wonderful writer. My favorite work of hers is "One of Ours." I read it years ago in a political science class where we explored the intersection between literature and political ideas. That's a class that could have gone on forever.
Peace
That class sounds perfect.
You might know this already but Claude's character is based on Cather's cousin, who died fighting in France. Her research and interviews for writing the book were intensive and widespread. (Ernest Hemingway was very snide about her Pulitzer win for "One of Ours" because she hadn't personally experienced war.) She was just such an incredible writer. I waffle between my favorite being "Death Comes for the Archbishop" and "O Pioneers!" but Archbishop tends to win out.
It seems like I read that somewhere about Claude's character, but the recollection is nothing more than a soft whisper from somewhere over yonder on a dark and windy night. I'm just not sure I heard it.
As the time passes since my surgery I discover more and more detail that seems to have been washed away from memory. It's a little disconcerting. Luckily some unsavory memories seem to have vanished as well. I wouldn't call that a silver lining, but it's something.
Memory is a funny thing. Neverendingly interesting, thinking how it works. I forget things I thought were terribly important once upon a time.
Yes, great points. When I was into “12 stepping” someone pointed out how Bill got sober while his wife cooked and cleaned.
Speaking from experience, I'd say it's a whole heck of a lot harder to take care of yourself while taking care of everyone else, too. I always wonder about life-hacker types who talk about their marathon and other achievements. They often talk about being involved parents, but maybe another question is, is their partner or co-parent (if they have one) also able to achieve marathon-level personal goals?
Thank you for this. 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" has been one of my touchstones for so long, I needed this reframe. Like how we used to think of trees as solitary, but now are beginning to fathom the many ways they are interconnected, in community. As often happens, your writing reminds me of other writing. The brilliant New Yorker piece about Thoreau's not-at-all-solitary "solitary" experiment at Walden, "Pond Scum," by Kathryn Schulz. E.g., his mother and sisters brought him food weekly. The gist: "'Walden' is also fundamentally adolescent in tone: Thoreau shares the conviction, far more developmentally appropriate and forgivable in teens, that everyone else’s certainties are wrong while one’s own are unassailable. Moreover, he presents adulthood not as it is but as kids wishfully imagine it: an idyll of autonomy, unfettered by any civic or familial responsibilities."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum
The other is "Desert Cabal," Amy Irvine's answer to Edward Abbey's also-constructed solitude. A penetrating imagined conversation with him, this book got her into some trouble with other beloved environmental writers. "How dare she—?"
Gwen and I recently watched the Cape Cod National Seashore's short film about Henry David on Cape Cod. The first comment she made when we walked out of the visitor center was about how arrogant he was. Its hard to imagine that the NPS contractors were told to show that, but they did, and in reflection, it wasn't that subtle. Its probably online somewhere, but if you ever get out there, its worth watching. As for Ed, I remember being overwhelmed when I met him (just once, a very long time ago). Desert Solitaire was fundamental for me in those days. And then struggling, upon reflection, with the adolescent fantasy of The Monkey Wrench Gang. But I do not want - nor do I think any of us want - to be known only for my weaknesses. Its ok to "deconstruct" things, necessary even, but lets not lose too much along the way either. I can laugh at Henry David. If you really want to hear what I have to accept as a long term local view of him, take a tour of the "Old Manse" in Concord. But I also hang a poster that says, "Let the evening overtake thee everywhere at home" on my wall.
I just got to the part of the book where Dungy talks about Desert Cabal and Abbey! There is just so, so much in this book. I think it's one I'm going to have to read again. And she first makes the point that Pilgrim was a touchstone for her for a long time, too (and I enjoyed it when I first read it). I feel like the larger point she might be making isn't that these books shouldn't be written or enjoyed, but that holding them up as THE paragons of environmental writing is a serious problem that affects writing but more than that affects most humans' ability to write about and be in nature. I'll never experience everything Dungy experiences, but there is so much here that speaks to me -- there's nothing like being told that a hike isn't a "Hike" if your 2-year-old you're carrying part of the time is included in the story ... it's no longer nature or environmental writing; it's in the parenting column.
I do love Kathryn Shulz. (I think I read that piece but might be mixing it up with a different one. My favorite of hers is the really horrifying one about stink bugs.) The essay I wrote years ago was about Elinore Pruitt Stewart's "Letters of a Woman Homesteader," which was about her time homesteading and has lots of little stories about being in the Wyoming "wilderness" with her 4-year-old girl. Her letters were published in The Atlantic in the early 1900s as she wrote them, and were hugely popular, but most people have never heard of her even though she was far more intrepid and independent than Thoreau.
"Perhaps the strangest, saddest thing about 'Walden' is that it is a book about how to live that says next to nothing about how to live with other people."
So true! It's bugs me about his book/essay "Walking," too, that he opens it with being contemptuous about people who work in shops all day and also women in general, who have to spend most of their time indoors (as if it was a choice at the time!), never correlating his own ability to spend days walking with freedom that too many other people don't have.
People who are shitty to each other, for example a prominent figure, Ron DeSantis, Trump etc. They seem broken. I always wonder what their childhood was like. What was wrong with their parents! Or do we have to accept that there are just sociopaths at one end of the spectrum and the other end perhaps people who just have it so hard that they can't help but pass that difficulty along?
To your end question: I wish I knew. I wish everyone could receive both the love and the help they need and not pass their own damage on to others. One thing I thought about Trump a long time ago, when he was super active on Twitter, was how much damage you'd have to inflict on a little boy to eventually turn him into a 70-something-year-old man with such a clear and public desperation for the validation of others. My sympathy is all for his victims -- which are legion -- but it does make you start to see that maybe we should take parenting and early childhood experiences more seriously.
To loop back down to my comment below: While there are many paths people stumble along, and many different stories of how we arrive at who were are, I have to wonder if there was a point in which Donny needed to disappear into an unpeopled space and couldn't.
Yes! Wish all the so-called , pro lifers, had as much interest in funding child care, early childhood education and nutrition and why don't we throw in awesome healthcare at the same time? (Sensible gun regulations?) Only then could you convince me somebody is pro-life.
(As if we'd need another motivation to take good care of kids) The massive financial return on investment is well established. That's what kills me about "fiscal conservatives"
Agree 100%. I live in an awfully conservative county, and can tell you that as far as I can see the mindset is pure Christian nationalism. That the only route to a good society that cares for everyone is accepting Christianity in a *very* limited and strictly defined way. It's madness, but it's what the dominant mindset is, and I'm sure this isn't the only area like that.
At least a dozen sentences and sentiments and ideas that resonated here as I read this at 5am holding my three month old youngest
Oh my goodness. That brings back memories! Congratulations. 💗💗💗 And seriously, I feel you. My youngest is 12 and a lot of this book is really hitting home, still, or maybe more than ever.
Why don’t people care? resonated deeply. I have had that thought but verbalising it like you have brings it to the fore to think more deeply about and act upon my caring.
It's not always easy. My friend's comment "don't disappear" when she was talking about going through cancer is some of the best advice I've ever received. It's often awkward or difficult to know how to help, but that one has been a good guide.
Thank you for all of this, Nia. It hits home at just the right time. I will investigate Dungy's writing further. She was not on my radar. "falsely created scarcity" is a theme that keeps popping up in my own mind. I notice how I am inventing scarcity *all by myself* concerning my time, attention, and plans. Thinking about how this expresses itself in other contexts is both overwhelming and generative. I mean, there's a lot of (too much) grist for the mill, as they say. Anyway, I remain forever grateful for your reflections and generosity. May we all learn to grow in reciprocity.
Oh my goodness, Sherri, what you say here is almost eerie because I've been thinking about how I might be creating scarcity all by myself in exactly those ways. Part of me doesn't want to believe it? Wants to believe that it's all imposed. And a lot of it is, but I think, for me, there might be more I can change than I'd like to admit. And YOU are one of the most generative, reflective, and generous people I know! I *think* you'll like Dungy's book if you read it. I would so love to know your thoughts if you do. I've admired her for a long time but have known her primarily as a poet, and this book is like ... turning over fresh soil in my mind, if that metaphor isn't too on the nose.
I've been thinking about how to defend, or even just explain, the traditional vision/role of wilderness, the un-peopled space, as it was created by [mostly] old white guys. It wasn't un-peopled, of course. I hear everything said here (and in the sources that got me started on this train of thought). But there's jus this argumment which is irreducible for me:
Our society puts incredible pressure on moms. Wow. And so many people are not represented in the fly fishing (which I do not do) version of the wild. I get that, and the rest of the critique. But our society also puts (and always has put) certain pressures on young white guys. And without some unpeopled wilderness in which to disappear for a time, in which to attempt to reduce it all down to something manageable. there are some of us who simply would not be here.
This is very, very true, Lee, and I truly appreciate your pointing it out. I don't want to speak for Dungy, especially as I haven't finished the book, but I think she's talking more about what is considered "canon" in nature and environmental writing, which leaves out so much of life that is really, really important. Vital, even. And the problem is that when canons are created, any stories that don't fit that mold are considered lesser. So the image of "environmental writing" becomes very limited by one single type of experience. There's a lot more to think and say about that, but part of the point is that the expectations of a certain kind of writing as well as a certain kind of experience affect all kinds of people in all kinds of ways and it's not something the literary world in general has attempted to reckon with until recently.
Which is how I'm reading it, anyway. And I hear you on the pressures and the need to disappear. Reading this comment, I immediately thought of Dahr Jamail and Elliott Woods, both writers I admire a huge amount, and both of whom write and talk about the ways in which disappearing into wilderness has kept them alive. Both have intense experiences of war that will never leave them. It strikes me now that the best of this kind of writing -- man/alone/wilderness -- or at least the kind that feels most real and honest and relevant to me, is from people like them who are stuck with that kind of trauma. Even someone like Chris McCandless -- I didn't particularly enjoy or dislike Krakauer's book about him, but I did understand, I think, some of what drove him to seek the wild for himself.
For me specifically, I'm thinking of a few Montana writers, as well as books like Mark Kenyon's "That Wild Country," books that manufacture an image of and relationship with these places that I find really frustrating. But again, the point is more that holding these books or this style of writing up as the only acceptable way of writing about "nature" is incredibly limiting for our understanding of nature and the rest of the human experience. Part of the problem is a factor of the wider one of manufactured scarcity -- only so many books and writers "make it" --which isn't necessarily the fault of the writers, but there are some writers who then become gatekeepers themselves and often don't admit as *valid* experiences and writing that aren't like their own. If that makes sense. Norman Maclean notwithstanding, fly fishing and a certain way of writing about rivers just feels like a current iteration.
I actually do fly fish and enjoy it! Though I grew up only fishing to eat and can't get my head around catch-and-release, which feels cruel to me.
Thanks for your thoughts. I acknowledge that what you say about the world of literature is true. I am not, at least not at the moment, subject to the "rules" writers have to contend with and can focus, as I am inclined to do, on the unity of things, not the slots into which experiencce is too often divided.
Well, you write very well -- and including about humans -- of the environment and environmental issues. And part of Dungy's point, I think, is that she would like to write into the unity of things -- and does -- but divisions are imposed from the outside. (Thinking again here of how often I've been told that travel or environmental writing that included any mention of having my kids with me isn't travel or environment -- it's "parenting.")