February, fourth week :: 2021

I went out for a walk this morning, the first one in a while. The trail is just on the far side of winter now, right on the doorstep of spring. I could almost hear the nettles pulsing their fresh green heads beneath the mud. Another week? Two?

For our Northern Hemisphere ancestors, late February would have been a hungry time, the cold damp deep in the bones, the winter stores gone or withered of their vitality. I imagine some long-ago ancestress scanning the fields and woods for that first flash of green, the first sign that nourishment was coming. I live a very different life, but I find myself harboring the same February ache, searching my own fields for something fresh and life-giving. You too?

I made the rounds the other day online, doing my civic duty to stay informed and aware, and I wondered if the news has ever been such a late-winter place, full of muck and weariness. I came away spattered with our local version, a sneering kind of mud, supercilious and cynical, that clings to the mind long after.

I have to be careful with that kind of thing, because cynicism and superciliousness come too easy to me. Writing has been a way to resist it, to grow, by the force of words, something green and hopeful within myself. I wrote myself a note that day: You are not an outrage factory.

I keep thinking of something Barry Lopez wrote about his friend, Brian Doyle, whose life and work mentors me constantly:

You were … the example that keeps us from despair, cynicism, detachment, and the other poisons bred in the bowels of our complex lives.

You walked in beauty, my dear friend. We all watched.

And now it is our turn.

(So. You are not an outrage factory. You are a lamp, made to be filled with light, a bowl of herbs, pungent with healing, a circle of arms for welcome. Your eyes are made for far-seeing and uncovering hope. This, this, this, is you.)

---

A handful of things from the week:

"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry is part of our "Poetry Films" series, which features animated interpretations of beloved poems from our archive. ...

H/T: Rachel

~ This post from Susan about where writers work. Some lovely and inspiring photos. (Wendell Berry {happy sigh.} And despite my love for huge bookcases, Nigella Lawson’s space is giving me a bit of claustrophobia!)

~ Saturday’s full moon is the Snow Moon, the last full moon of winter. I’m going to make something simple for dinner, in keeping with the late-winter theme. (Maybe a nightshade-free version of colcannon and some sausages? I might splurge on dessert though.) If the weather cooperates, we’ll spend some time under the moonlight. <3

~ Exploring the work of Caroline Shaw after reading about her in The Atlantic. Here’s a nice introduction.

I’ll leave you with something from Brian Doyle:

The coolest most amazing people I have met in my life, I said, are the ones who are not very interested in power or money, but who are very interested in laughter and courage and grace under duress and holding hands against the darkness, and finding new ways to solve old problems, and being attentive and tender and kind to every sort of being, especially dogs and birds, and of course children.

Let’s hold hands against the darkness, shall we?

tonia

February 4, 2021

The birds were singing when I went out this morning and the bulbs I rushed into the ground in November are poking their heads up, but we always get a false spring in February and I’m refusing to be drawn in.  I know Mother Nature has 8 more weeks of drizzle and grey skies for us here.  I don’t mind.  I’m pretty fond of winter.

 I’m up to my ears right now in 7th grade algebra.  Square roots and the distributive property, sigh.  I’ve got a couple more weeks to take my math placement exam and as I’m hoping to do the least amount of math possible over this degree I have to study hard now.  I’m just calling this humiliation month.  I’m thinking that maybe some really nice pencils and a good pencil sharpener would help me enjoy this better.  (Check yes if you agree that good writing supplies always improve a situation.) I ordered a new fountain pen and the yummiest, smoothest ink a while back and that has been making me happy pretty much every day, so it follows that new pencils will make math easier, right?  I’m all about textural pleasures.

A few things I want to remember this week:

~ I came across this advice from Jerry Seinfeld in a newsletter I follow this morning.

LEARN HOW TO ENCOURAGE YOURSELF

Oof, I needed that.  I’m still way too dependent on the approval of others (or flustered by their disapproval).  Insecurity and shut-down women run in my family like water through a hose, but hell if I’m going to join them.  This is the year of doing hard things, of finding the guts to speak and live on my own. (Eleanor approves.)

~ Speaking of going solo, did you see this post on the realities of Instagram engagement?  I hope no one is actually buying into this. In case you are wondering, it’s been a year and a half since I left social media and I have no regrets.  I still check in occasionally on a few people whose content enrich me and I’m grateful for people creating beautiful posts, but I do have a secret hope that we’ll move on some day and the corporations can figure out how to make money by doing their own damn work. 

~ appleturnover’s channel is a gift.  Such beautiful little films about a small-scale regenerative homestead. 

~ Adrienne Maree Brown on the founding wound.  Woah. (Worth reading the whole thing if you have time.)

things are not getting worse
they are getting uncovered
we must hold each other tight
and continue to pull back the veil
see: we, the body, we are the wounded place

 ~ And this, from last month, but still making me cry.  I’m so thankful for the people in my life who have allowed me to change and still love me as myself.  A couple of friends in particular - you know who you are! But mostly my husband, for whom I feel such deep, deep gratitude. 

Until next time.

Peace keep you.

best of the books, 2020

Happy, happy new year (AT LAST) my friends! Since I’m not getting any newsletters out right now, here’s a little end of year reading update. I finished 107 books this year which was a pretty good year for me. These are the ones that stand out in my memory (with some of my Goodreads notes included):

Nonfiction:

On Immunity: An Inoculation - Eula Biss - My son gave me a copy of this well before the pandemic arrived, but it’s certainly timely now. Biss writes as a mother, with a mother's perspectives and concerns, in pursuit of understanding the history of vaccination, the fears around it, the science we know and don't know, and the ways our lives are changed because of it. She is empathetic, real, curious, and human in her responses to what she uncovers. The book is not so much an argument for vaccination as an exploration of what it means to be a parent, what it means to live in community, our dependence on each other, and the real challenge of fear. The book is imminently readable and approachable. Highly recommended.

Distant Neighbors: Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder - Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder have two very different approaches to life (WB is an agrarian in the Christian tradition, GS is an environmental activist and Zen Buddhist) but both men are poets and writers who managed to forge a respectful and affectionate friendship through the years. I was so touched by their admiration and respect for each other's work, for the way they capitalized on agreement and went to each other for understanding their own biases and assumptions. My own affection for both men grew as I read their correspondence, but I was most taken with Berry, whose quiet humility, thoughtfulness, integrity and goodness shines through. What a lovely book for these fractious days.

Stamped From the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi - I don't feel qualified to judge the merits of this book as a history text - as I read I began to think of it more as sitting down with an intelligent, informed neighbor to hear their side of an ongoing story. It was powerful, shocking (not to discover that racism is pervasive, but to realize how much of it I've passively accepted in my life), humbling, and infuriating.

It is a long book, over 500 pages, and densely written. At times, I thought Kendi wielded his labels a little too broadly, but as I said, I considered the book from the standpoint of hearing a version of my history from a necessary and informed perspective rather than a precise history (though, as I said, I'm simply not qualified to judge it on those merits.) Still, it's an outstanding, eye-opening, and disturbing work that I wish everyone could read.

Poetry:

Deaf Republic - Ilya Kaminsky -

"We lived happily during the war
And when they bombed other people's houses, we
protested
but not enough..."

"At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow this?
And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow this?"

A parable/poem about a town's response to oppression and occupation. When a deaf boy is shot in the street by a soldier, the townspeople choose to become deaf. A moving challenge to our collective silence and our acceptance of atrocity.

Refugia - Kyce Bello - Refugia are habitats of retreat, where organisms and ecosystems go to try and survive. Kyce Bello takes that idea and explores what it means to be alive now, in a world that is changing, where much of what we love is dying. What does it mean to be a mother now? A child? How do you make plans to survive? How do you bear the weight of guilt? What will carry on? What will be left behind?

An absolutely beautiful and timely collection that has held my hand through all these pandemic days and will go on and on with me through the years ahead. (In fact, I keep a portion of one of these poems in the footer of the blog.)

Fiction:

Less - Andrew Sean Greer - I just loved this. It reminded me of a P.G. Wodehouse novel - if Wodehouse made Bertie Wooster a gay, middle-aged, slightly lost novelist and set him loose in the world without Jeeves. Sweet, funny, and quite brilliant. Nice skewering of the publishing world and writer's egos. It was a charming break from the too serious reading I've been doing.

Weather - Jenny Offill - I kept hearing how strange Offill's writing was, so I put off reading her. My bad. I absolutely loved this, and I love her style. It takes tremendous skill to pull a narrative along in short paragraphs. I thought it was brilliant. And the subject matter - a woman's anxiety about climate insecurity - is imminently relatable.

Writers & Lovers - Lily King - This story of a young woman trying to finish her novel and work through grief is one of my favorites this year. King's descriptions of the inner-anguish of novel writing alone would make this a keeper, but she has also created a protagonist that is easy to like and easy to root for.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk - A strange little murder mystery with a grouchy, complicated, astrology and animal loving protagonist. (Somehow connected in my mind with Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands, which I also enjoyed a lot.)

Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse - Fantasy set in pre-Columbian America? YES. Fabulous world creation, characters, intricate and interesting plot, great writing. Crows. Amazing. Can't wait for the next installment.

I’d love to hear any of your favorites, so please feel free to share! (I also love to hear about books you hated and why. Unlike last year (I’m looking at you, Where the Crawdads Sing) I had a pretty good run and don’t have any books I want to burn in the New Year’s bonfire, but if you’ve got one, do tell! )

"...how to keep from becoming evil..."

I don’t know what else to do with 2020 but just roll with it. Lately my body has been rebelling with aches and pains and general grouchiness against any kind of sitting at a desk so I’ve been putting my energy into moving instead. I can’t remember an autumn when I have written less or been more caught up on yard work. All the bulbs are in, the gardens are put to bed, the herbs are harvested, the roses are pruned, and my yoga game is strong.

Maybe all that physical work is also a way of distracting myself from the state of the country (what in the hell is even going ON, people?!) which is probably a good thing since my Enneagram 1-ness would ordinarily be in high-distress mode about all the ideal-smashing and not-improving that is going on these days.

I mostly gave up alcohol a few months ago, but I’m making it through by being exhausted at night and keeping company with wise mentors. Right now I’m reading Distant Neighbors: The Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder, which I highly recommend. Both Berry and Snyder have been fighting the good fight (each in their own, often very different, ways) for longer than I’ve been alive. WB had this to say back in 1978, and I’ll leave you with it:

“…living at peace is a difficult, deceptive concept. Same for not resisting evil. You can struggle, embattle yourself, resist evil until you become evil - as anti-communism becomes totalitarian. I have no doubt of that. But I don’t feel the least bit of an inclination to lie down and be a rug either, and now I begin to ask myself if I can live at peace only by being reconciled to battle….I am, I believe, a “nonviolent” fighter. But I am a fighter. And I see with considerable sorrow that I am not going to get done fighting and live at peace in anything like the simple way I once thought I would. So how to keep from becoming evil?

Maybe the answer is to fight always for what you particularly love, not for abstractions and not against anything: don’t fight against even the devil and don’t fight “to save the world.” […]

If you don’t see how much badness comes from stupidity, ignorance, confusion, etc - if you don’t see how much badness is done by good, likeable people, if you don’t love, or don’t know you love, people whose actions you deplore - then I guess you go too far into outrage, acquire diseased motives, quit having any fun, and get bad yourself.”

Be gentle to yourselves. And each other.

with love,

tonia

a late-June note

The New Moon has come and gone, as has the Solstice, and I am no closer to getting a newsletter out to you. I seem to be feeling the cumulative stress of these last strange months all at once. New food sensitivities, brain fog, fatigue, racing heart, apathy. I barely recognize myself. And this week, which I set aside specifically for writing, got sidelined by a family member in the hospital and a few days of really emotional decision making for one of my children (mamas, we feel this as if it were ourselves, don’t we?)

To help myself calm down, I put my loved ones on notice that I do not want to hear ANY news this week or any updates on anything that are not of an immediate life or death emergency. This is harder said than done! I have become profoundly aware of how much information our psyches are subjected to everywhere. It’s almost impossible to avoid stimulation. (I am thinking especially now of my dear ones with anxiety or panic attacks, addiction recovery, and auto-immune disorders that require a calm nervous system. <3)

Monday morning, just before the messages started arriving about my family’s needs, I was at the duck house doing my usual chores, head down, fiddling with water buckets and feed dishes, when I had the strong urge to look up. I did, and there, across from me was a doe, staring intently. I’ve written before that deer are indicators of the presence of God for me, so I stopped what I was doing and stared back. We kept eye contact for several minutes and I welcomed her as a God-message. She just stayed right there, holding my gaze and I stayed and drank it in. Then she casually left, and I went back to the house and the week fell apart. But every day I have revisited that gift of calm energy, that preemptive sense of comfort and with-ness.

During these days when I have tried to mute the world around me, I have been thinking about all the little practices I have been developing over these years. Things like leaving social media, non-violence, receiving the gifts of nature, meditation, learning to listen to my body, changing my spiritual communities, and others; things I worried over and felt self-conscious about, things I struggled to explain to others. Now I can see how vital these things are to my continued health, and how my intuition knew well before my head and intellect what would be healing and right for me. I am amazed by it, truly amazed.

Everything from religion to education to advertisements constantly tells us we can’t learn, we can’t know without their approval and expertise, that we can’t trust what is inside ourselves to be sufficient. Like most people, I have believed that all my life. But discovering that I can trust my inner knowing, that the path that seems right to me when I am listening and at peace is nearly always the right path, that Love is all around and in and through and always guiding, that is an amazing joy.

In the garden this morning, I noticed the cool-weather crops have been lingering around longer than usual and the summer plants are still small and unsteady, different than other late Junes - but not surprising for this cool and rainy one we’ve just had. There is no sense of frustration there, no anxiety vibrating off the tomato leaves. I want to live by such confidence, content with the sun I am given, and the rain when it falls, taking what I can and growing. I admit I am not there yet. A part of me is disappointed that I haven’t got a newsletter out for you. It’s been a year since I started writing about cultivating a quiet life, and it feels like a failure to break the string even for a short time. But I think, this too, is part of my healing and coming to be myself. This is not a commercial space or a business. I am not a machine that can pump out content. I am something more than that, of earth and blood, with all the wild sensitivities and rhythms of stars and planets and bees and rivers coursing through me. And so are you.

Be well, my friends. I’ll be writing again soon.

Peace keep you.

tonia