Hey y'all!
Last night, as we drove home from our favorite Chinese restaurant, it began to drizzle, and as the baked on dust on our windshield began to smear under the ministrations of the windshield wiper before washing away , I felt something very much approaching glee.
During 2020, I had a hard time writing, because I wanted to write about what I was feeling, and the problem was, everyone else was feeling it too. Nobody needed yet another tale of the impending doom someone experienced while fighting an elderly person in the aisle at Target for the last package of toilet paper.
I have also had a hard time writing this year. Because while this year has been a very hard year for me, I know it’s been hard for lots of y’all, too. Like many of you - I lost work this year because of the current presidential administration. Like many of you, I can’t watch the news because the constant onslaught of the latest horror is a bit too much. Like many of you, choosing sides has cost me friends and family members. And I have had a hard time writing about any of that.
So let me sum it all up by saying this has been a bad year for both my mental and fiscal health. My publishing schedule has reflected this. As a rule of thumb, if I am not on the road or on vacation, and I don’t get a newsletter out that week, I’m not in a good place, because I love this project, and writing for and to you folks.
This is also reflected in my yard, which is a raucous chaotic cottage garden, filled with folk art and wildflowers and, right now, weeds and overgrowth and deferred maintenance. It always gets a little wild in August and September because those are the miserable months here, when one hides inside with a tall cold drink and fondly gazes at the garden through a window, if at all. But this year it was a little wild in April.
And September is our driest month, and so it rained only once - and not long - in the last 45 days or so. We average an inch or so of rain a week throughout the year, so when we get none for a month, it shows. The grass is brown. Leaves are dropping from plants. Instead of lush and verdant, everything in my yard feels… crispy. Everything feels crispy, if I’m honest. Like the whole nation needs watering and a good trim.
So last night, after a good dinner at one of our favorite places, when on the ride home it began to, at first, drizzle and then to rain, it felt amazing. When we got home, we sat in our new screen house (which still needs to be painted!) and watched the slow rain drip off the edge of the tin roof.
When I woke up this morning, it was still raining. Slowly, carefully. The sort of rain you would walk to your car in without running, the kind that soaks deep into the earth rather than washing down the hill, that drops the temperature.
The sort of rain that gives you hope.
Five Beautiful Things
What Happened when the World Stopped was a poem written in 2020, when the world had, well, stopped, about nature and our ability to impact it. It was then turned into a short animated video, with the poem narrated by Jane Goodall, and if you don’t click on any other link today, I hope you will click on this one.
There are buzzwords I detest. “Content” is one. I don’t make content - I write. Making a “living”. I don’t make a living, I make income. Living is what I do with it. “Maker” is another. But in the way folks talk about their hobbies these days, I’m a maker, and I follow lots of them on YouTube and elsewhere. One of my favorites is Adam Savage, of Mythbusters fame. In this 12 minute video in which he is answering viewers questions, he has this beautiful riff on “Empathy, Kindness and Respect” as a model for dealing with, ahem, uncertain times.
The World Is Too Much With Us
By William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
One of the worlds of esoterica I live in is the writing/publishing world, and so I follow the excellent Anne Trubeck. I loved this piece about how to read more books (as opposed to, say, doomscrolling).
In light of the opening essay, this seemed pertinent:
Gardener’s Prayer
Karel Čapek
O Lord, grant that in some way it may rain every day,
Say from about midnight until three o'clock in the morning,
But, You see, it must be gentle and warm so that it can soak in;
Grant that at the same time it would not rain on sedums, and others which You in Your infinite wisdom know are drought-loving plants…
And grant that the sun may shine the whole day long,
But not everywhere (not, for instance, on the fern and hosta)
and not too much;
That there may be plenty of dew and little wind,
enough worms, no aphids and snails, or mildew,
and that once a week thin liquid manure may fall from heaven.
Amen.
