On Saturday, we central New Englanders saw the first true snowfall of the winter. Where I live, we got about five inches, just enough to strap on snowshoes and head out into the wild. My family and I explored the woods near our new house, tracked a neighbor dog, brushed flakes from hearty mushrooms, and stumbled into an area that had, moments before our arrival, been a resting place for four deer. I took photos of the woods and the tracks and the mushrooms and the deer beds, of course, but none of them pleased me as much as the image above. Is there anything as exciting as the rush into untrodden, new-fallen, long-awaited snow?
I have spent the past month drinking deeply from this collection of essays, jotting notes in margins, mulling ideas, appreciating voices and places new to me. I’m feeling tipsy. There is so much to admire in these pages, and to love. Like this lesson from John Anderson’s essay Sauntering toward Bethlehem:
“More and more I have come to believe that the context of any action may be at least as important as the action itself, and that this also applies to our learning and teaching. An analysis of bear dung that gives a precise distribution of foodstuffs consumed or fits the bear into some clearly defined trophic level doubtless has an elegance and beauty of its own, but it is neither the bear nor the berries that the bear ate, nor the crushed grass stems springing back from the bear’s pugmarks, nor the taste of the morning air before anyone else in camp is awake, nor your feeling of breathless excitement that direct contact with the truly other can bring.”
And this, from Laura Sewall’s Perceiving a World of Relations:
“What sort of sensibility might emerge with one’s attention commonly cast out over a river? Could it be that a fluid, flexible form of consciousness–a certain sensibility–is born of attention to River? Could an internal ease arise after contemplating Lake’s still depth? As children, might we learn the nature of transformation by watching tadpoles become frogs in the fecund months of spring? Might we then be predisposed toward a belief in our own potential to transform?”
THE WAY OF NATURAL HISTORY captured me as much by content as by style. Perhaps it would capture you, too?
I’m thrilled to be part of the Worcester Writers Collaborative Author Explosion on January 29 at Tatnuck Bookseller in Westboro, Massachusetts, where more than a dozen local authors will be reading and signing copies of their books in a single afternoon. We are a diverse group of writers, creating books for children as well as adults, works of fiction and of nonfiction, books published traditionally and books published on our own. If you live in central Massachusetts and would like to learn more about the variety of writers living and working near you, do stop in and say hello. We’d love to meet you. Here are the event details:
Saturday, January 29, 2012, 1-4pm Tatnuck Bookseller
18 Lyman Street
Westborough, MA
I’ll be on hand to talk about and sign copies of The Hive Detectives and Tracking Trash. Since Citizen Scientists releases just two short weeks later, however, I’ve decided to dedicate my reading time to a Sneak Peek! I’m scheduled to read at 1:30pm, but plan to hang around, enjoy the festivities, and mingle with attendees and with my fellow authors all afternoon. I hope to see you there!
Yes, I realize it’s Thursday. But putting up a Wednesday Wild post on a Thursday seems about right for me these days. I’m behind in everything, you know? But now that the holidays are past and my family and I are settled into our new place, I’m expecting my days to find their old rhythm. One week soon I will post something wild on a Wednesday. (Or maybe even a Tuesday!) In any event, we’re beginning to explore our new environment, and I’m looking forward to sharing what we find. Which brings me to this painted turtle.
On my birthday, my sons made an unusual request. Meet us at the pond, they said. Bring cookies. Who am I to question such intrigue? I packed up some Oreos and went to the pond. They showed up with two school friends, and all four boys greeted me with Happy Birthday wishes. (Which I thought was adorable. These guys are thirteen, for crying out loud.)
Then they ate the cookies. (As I said: thirteen.)
Then, Come on. We’ve got a surprise for you.
I followed them along the trail beside the pond. Two of them slipped out onto the ice.
(A safety interlude: This pond is so shallow that to break through the ice would drop one into water only ankle-deep. Otherwise I would have not allowed–or joined in–such shenanigans. NEVER WALK ON POND ICE UNLESS YOU ARE SURE IT IS SAFE!)
Okay. On top of the pond, boys sneaker-skated about, peered through the ice, muttered. Eventually they dropped to their knees.
There!
A painted turtle. Under the ice. Just hanging out.
The boys waved me over. I stepped onto the ice. Loud cracks shot wildly about. The boys asked me to step back while they evacuated. They assured me the issue was their weight, not mine. (Love these guys.) And then, with the strain on the ice lessened, I slid out there alone. And I can tell you for certain that a turtle in winter is a mighty fine gift.
My friend Jeannine Atkins introduced me to a new blog last week, and I am enjoying it so thoroughly I have to spread the word. The Open Notebook is dedicated to the art and craft of science journalism, and every post I’ve seen has inspired me to read further, dig deeper, and wonder more about the work I do. If you write about science, or want to, you should check it out.
The timing of TON’S recent post on taking good notes has been particularly fruitful for me. I’m attempting to find (reinvent?) my working groove after a too-long moving haitus. Reviewing scads of research materials related to my current work-in-progress has surely helped me slide back into my story, but reading at the same time how other science writers take, treat, and organize their research notes has absolutely deepened the experience.
After a long and busy month of traveling and packing and moving and unpacking and celebrating and, truth be told, worrying about the work I was neglecting all the while, this morning I get back to work. I got up early, excited to begin, but was stopped short by this breathtaking sunrise. For me, it was a reminder to strive for balance. Work, yes, but enjoy beauty and family and all the rest, too. Every day. Somehow, some way, make room for all of it.
So I spent some time outside with my camera, had breakfast with the boys, walked the little miss to school. Had a cup of tea. And now, with a deep breath of gratitude for the many facets of this gorgeous morning, I’m ready to begin.
Okay, Scientists in the Field (SITF) fans … do you remember this Donna M. Jackson title from 2002? Of course you do. How could you forget that cover? I remember reading it back when I was obsessively studying the SITF series and preparing to pitch my own title to its editors. That pitch became my first book, Tracking Trash, and now, in just a couple hours, I’ll be in a conference call with Tom Turpin, the guy up there with the bugs on his face.
Can I just take a moment to say that this sort of full circle stuff thrills me to no end?
Anyway, Tom and I are joining forces with a group of scientists and educators to tout the power of insects in science education. We’ll be sharing our ideas later this month at the Entomological Society of America annual conference in Reno, Nevada, in a morning-long symposium. If you happen to be in ‘the biggest little city in the world’ at the same time, do please stop by and say hello. I don’t think there are any plans for us to wear bugs, but you never know …
THE OTHER WAY TO LISTEN
by Bird Baylor and Peter Parnall
Atheneum, 1978
Category: Picture Book
These days, my life is boxes and newspapers and packing up to move. I’m slow at this task, especially now that I am smack in the middle of boxing up my library. I’ve got a few (too many) books, and being both anal and geeky, have always wanted to catalog them. This seems the perfect opportunity. So, before I box them, I’ve been adding each and every title to my LibraryThing page.
The other thing that slows me some is reading. Each time I pull an old beloved off the shelf, I’m tempted to clear a spot on the couch and visit with it a while. That happened this morning with Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall’s THE OTHER WAY TO LISTEN. And I’ll tell you this: reading this book is a fine way to start a day. One might argue a reading of this picture book as the finest way to start every day.
On the surface, it’s a quiet picture book about a young girl and an old man and the one trying to learn from the other how to listen. Really listen.
“He was so
good
at listening—
once
he heard
wildflower seeds
burst open,
beginning
to grow
underground.”
My kids have heard this story before, but humored me and listened to it again this morning. It still confuses them, as I think it would have confused me once, too. (You know, back when I was more literal … and not so good at listening.) Like the old man and his protege in the story, I can’t really teach my kids what the book means. But I can box it up and move it over to the new house, keep it safe on my shelf, read it to them now and again. Encourage them to think on other ways to listen. Remind them,
We’re moving. If you have ever moved, you can probably relate to how I’m feeling these days: harried, overwhelmed, excited, and sad. The sad part has to do with saying goodbye to a place that has been Home to my family for a decade. For ten years, we’ve worked the soil here, and trampled the grass and climbed the trees and lived with the wildlife. We know this place in a way that no one else does, and it is very hard to let that go. Those trees up there, for example, are two of a dozen or so shagbark hickories that we have come to know. The new owners will surely love them as much, but when they wonder why the one on the right has no shag at the bottom, who will tell them? Who will describe the little boys who grew up playing under that tree? Little boys who one day ran their chubby hands over those tags and strips of glorious hanging bark and couldn’t help but pull. And pull. And pull. I’m sad that this story will come away with us, and that the lovely, generous, naked-at-the-bottom-shaggy-at-the-top hickory will not.
I found this strange musrhoom growing at the edge of the front lawn. It’s a stinkhorn, and I now know where the name comes from; they really stink! The over-sweet smell is distinctive, and designed, I’ve since read, to attract flies, which land on the slime-coated tip of the mushroom, muck about, and fly off with spores stuck to their legs. Stinky, but clever.
