The Glimmering Miles of It

I'm like those birds, keas in New Zealand, who collect the shiny objects: I go out in the world, certain things glimmer at me, they resonate with something inside me it could be the waiting room of a veterinary clinic, an overheard moment of conversation, the way the light is coming through the trees. Whatever it is, it hits that spot in me that says, "Writing-worthy."                                                            
                                                                                                                                  -Pam Houston

It seems 2014 was a year of taking things apart. It is my hope that 2015 will be a year of putting them back together, in more meaningful ways. Being here again, finally, after a long absence, as I begin teaching the nature writing class again, is a starting place. At the Summer Community of Writers this past year, we participated in a writing exercise with Pam that asked us to find and reflect on a few of those glimmers. It occurs to me that last year - one filled with too-muchness - was overfull with them, those moments of utter importance, whether positive or negative. And there's too much to say in any thoughtfully organized way.

On companion animals: Shortly after my last entry, we lost Pepper, a loss that Z. took very hard and which we all still struggle with; we lost one of the cats this past summer, too, and the last cat is ailing.

On avian animals: That rufous hummingbird continued to try to overwinter, even into early January when the temperatures fell to almost zero and I was changing out the feeder nectar every 10 minutes because it kept freezing. My last sighting of him was January 7th, 2014.We bought a house in March and I convinced a neighbor at the old house to keep a feeder out this fall, in case he returned, but she never saw him. I am still hoping against hope he made it, did not freeze to death (as is common among hummingbirds). Our new house has a very puzzling lack of bird life. Even with feeders out, we routinely have very few visitors. Only saw a couple of ruby throats all summer. At our previous house, the birds could empty the feeder within a day. Here, I've filled it once in months and it's still nearly full. I am utterly disappointed. Especially because last semester I completed the Virginia Master Naturalist program and was planning to participate in Cornell's Project Feederwatch in order to gain some of my required volunteer hours for full certification. Perhaps a change of food will help. There is a pileated woodpecker who lives nearby, which is always an exciting sighting. I could, though, do without the resident catbirds, which mewl incessantly and annoyingly, just like a certain cat used to do.

On place: Despite the lack of bird activity and that I no longer have a mountain view out my window, it has been lovely to have a place that is ours again. We are within walking or running distance to both Wildwood Park and Bisset Park, places where we find ourselves often. Here I will finally make good on my promise to the girls that we will have a garden this summer. Gardening is unfamiliar territory and is a daunting prospect, given my inability to keep green things alive. It should be an interesting adventure. The landscape of this house is desperate and needs attention, another project once winter flees.

On travel: When I was younger, I used to travel a great deal, but those days have long been eclipsed by life. I have been teaching at Chatham since 2005, and last spring, had the first chance to be an instructor for one of our field seminar abroad courses. The other instructor and I took a group of 24 students to Belize and Guatemala for two weeks. I last traveled internationally twenty years ago and to say the experience was astonishing would be an understatement. This was full immersion in the natural world, in a place teeming with life and activity. The experience was helped by having a wonderful guide (he says, "loving nature is my language"), who knew I was most interested in the wildlife. And see wildlife we did - my spotted-bird list was impressive, and we saw monkeys in the wild, among so many other things. I hope to one day return. 

On teaching and writing: It was a conflicted decision to relinquish my hard-won full-time teaching job, but that life was wholly unsustainable. I have pangs of regret every day, but know that I made the right decision. Now I must be patient as I search for a more-right path. I did find, after years of searching, the right place for one of my essays, "Giant Forest." Now the task remains to return to and complete the collection. That project has been on hold for far too long, another of the many reasons I made such difficult decisions last year. 

All the glimmers, indeed. Many more to come.  

What We Should Do

I've been thinking a lot since the weekend about some ideas that came out of one of the writing craft lectures at the Chatham residency. Some ideas that seem a bit problematic to me. I've been struggling to make sense of these thoughts. I realized yesterday that the term I've been reaching for, the idea that feels problematic to me, is atavism. In a social science context, atavism is used to discuss culture, the concept of modern people reverting to ways of thinking and acting that are throwbacks to a former time. And in this sense, that former time is usually looked on nostalgically, almost reverently. This seems to be a common thread in a lot of nature/environmental writing, especially in the contemporary works, given the urgent environmental crises we currently face. Writers who feel that we need to get back to basics, a simpler life and time, before technology and science mucked things up so badly.

What's been problematic to me about an atavistic attitude is that I'm just not sure it's such a great idea. I love many writers' absolute conviction that environmental issues are the single most critical thing we humans are facing, and I would also agree with that. I can even agree, to a certain extent, with the assertion that our advancements, our technologies, are the root causes of many (or most) of our social problems, especially environmental. But these writers too often also have what feels like an overly romanticized view of "nature." Maintaining what seems to me an idealized view of life as it used to be, the agrarian, close-to-the-land lifestyle, or the belief that we all, unilaterally, need to to aspire to return to that, to heal ourselves and the planet, is where I diverge. While I think that is a lovely, admirable goal, it's just not that realistic. And it idealizes a way of life that is impractical and perhaps impossible for a lot of people. It's a way of life I'm not sure I myself would want.

Sure, it would be nice to quit society and move to the country and live lightly, live off the grid. But unless everyone commits to that - which is unlikely - there are lots of people who can do really amazing environmental work within the society we've created, who can find ways to see, and help others see/find the "wildness" and "wilderness" (terms that get tossed around a lot by nature writers) in their own spaces and places, as they are now. I like to think that I can do that. People I know can do that. And that we too can make a difference.

On Feathers and Foreigners

I have realized that now that I no longer have a job where I sit in front of a computer all day long, to maintain this space as I have in the past, as I would like - which means long, meandering, thoughtful posts - is an impossibility. So I shall have to retrain my Blog Self, to write smaller things, less meandering but, I hope, not less thoughtful.

I am reconsidering my commitment to the birds here, the ones that visit our feeders, for purely selfish reasons, ones I feel most guilty about. Basically, it's economic. Daily I am astounded by just how expensive it has gotten to keep these birds - especially all the cardinals - sustained. Pesky squirrels aside, the birds themselves can literally empty a huge feeder in just a single day, if feeling motivated (which they are, always). With three of these feeders, we are spending a small fortune on this new hobby. When I complained about it to a friend the other day, she warned me that once I start, I really can't stop, especially not in winter when food becomes so scarce and they've come to rely on us for help. Probably we'll just keep buying it and keep filling them. But it's become not entirely a small burden.

As I predicted earlier this spring, the chopping down of the ailanthus forest in our yard has been futile. And if anything, culling them seems to only have hastened their propagation to a wild degree. I'm finding even more - which didn't seem possible - saplings, all over the yard now. In Pittsburgh, my foe was Japanese honeysuckle. And here, it is that ailanthus. But it's a battle I know I cannot possibly win. On my run this morning, I stopped to admire a mimosa tree, another pesty non-native species. It is a tree that, like the honeysuckle, has a scent that is so beautiful, almost intoxicating. I can understand why people brought them to a place where they don't belong.

Apologia

It seems I have terrifically underestimated the time - and energy - demands of full-time parenting & part-time teaching. I've spent almost the last two months compiling the beginnings of nature blog entries & sticking them into a Word file, which is now many, many pages long. Will those fragments ever become manifest? I certainly hope so. I keep up with the reading, but not the words, not the thoughtful part of things. I have a tiny moment to breathe, and I hope to catch up with responding to all those Words Not My Own this week. But as for the currency of this blog, I can safely say that I definitely do not get a *passing* grade for my own assignment!

Joining the Flock

Since I've asked all my students in the nature & environmental writing course this semester to keep a nature blog, I feel like I also should do my best to complete my own assignments as well. Doing so would be a useful and much needed exercise for me too. What I've asked them to write, during most weeks:

1. One posting from a chosen “place” where students will go weekly;
2. A second posting in response to a directed question/prompt related to the week’s
course topic;
3. A third posting that reflects on or responds to:
a. Either a blog post by one of the fellow students OR
b. A blog post found on an outside nature blog through the Nature Blog
Network (http://natureblognetwork.com/).

To be honestly practical, I have to admit that I will likely not have the luxury of setting aside time each week for writing about a chosen place - though my several-times-weekly runs in the park could probably fit. I have so little time, still, and parenting and teaching takes up most of it, still. But I can write to the other two requirements. In fact, I actually look forward to trying.

Decisions, Decisions

I have no idea what books to use for my Craft of Nature & Environmental Writing course this summer. the big anthology I planned to use, S. is using now, which isn't that problematic, BUT another faculty member is using it in his lit class now as well. So there's a chance that some of those students who are enrolled in his course would take mine this summer and be stuck with the same main text. And that's no good.

I don't like any of the options. I'm probably stuck with the Norton Book of Nature Writing (those Norton anthologies give me bad undergraduate flashbacks I tell you...). It's comprehensive, but that's the issue. It's too comprehensive. The true "contemporary" nature writing section doesn't start till about 500 pages in, and that's the part I'd rather focus on in this course. I just don't know what to do.

I have ideas for *supplemental* readings, but what a huge amount of work, scanning them and getting them all online in Blackboard. Not to mention that I scribble up my own books like crazy (FYI: If such personal notes bother you, you might not ever want to borrow a book from me!), so I probably can't copy anything from most of my personal library. If I don't order books like, yesterday, the bookstore manager is going to kill me.

I did, last night, solicit some feedback from some current (and future) students in that class about my idea for a field trip to see pennsylvania's largest nursery colony of little brown bats at Canoe Creek State Park near Altoona (about 2 hours from Pittsburgh). I guess that single colony is up around 25,000 and there's several hundred endangered Indiana bats too. The students thought it sounded like a really fun idea, and I've been meaning to do this for the last seven years. I just discovered they have a batcam! .

Another animal-not-bat-related note: With the recent rains and the upcoming warm temperatures, I'm guessing this could be prime viewing weekend here for the yellow-spotted salamander mating. I was going to include a link, but oddly, there's not a single related link to this annual phenomena (if any local folks want directions, let me know. it's REALLY cool). Or maybe that's not so odd after all. I mean, they're just salamanders, right?

When I mentioned the possible bat field trip (which would probably mean an overnight, since it's so far from here), J. got all jealous and said: "I want to see the bats too!"

Rescue the Drowning, and Tie Your Shoe-Strings

Here's the mark of a true, geeky academic: When you discover not one, but TWO, really amazing journals, which are surprisingly accessible. And you find yourself positively delirious with excitement over words, plain old *boring* words on the page. Such that you simply cannot stop reading them. Have spent the better part of my "work" time so far reading full text articles from Society and Animals . My favorites so far?:

• "Anthropomorphism and Anthropomorphic Selection—Beyond the 'Cute Response'"
• "Toward a Non-Speciesist Psychoethic"
• "Crossover Animal Fantasy Series: Crossing Cultural and Species as Well as Age Boundaries"

Yup. Total geek.

Thinking of Moving...

...into the Langley Hall library (aka the Biology library). Seriously. Conveniently located right across the street from where I work, it's like a wee little library full of the coolest books. If I had a home library like that, I'd never have to leave my house. I just can't stop pulling books off the shelves in there. I went during lunch today for just two particular books, which turned into four, which then turned into seven, and then I saw one more I'd missed on the "new book" shelf right by the checkout. And there were several more I just couldn't carry.

I really should have had some sense about me fifteen years ago and studied wildlife biology, instead of English. How very different my life might be. Ah, hindsight.

The Book Excerpt

After almost four years, The Animal Book is finally in print!
Here's what the editors have to say about my essay...

“…Those of us who have shared our lives with animals may recall a time when we ‘lost our eyes’ and thus attained a fuller vision. Perhaps one day it will dawn on us that our dog finds us difficult to communicate with—that the problem was ours—instead of vice versa; we might have realized suddenly what our horse has been telling us all along about the field we tried to force him through. Melanie Dylan Fox has loaned her eyes in this way to the black bears of Sequoia National Park. In ‘Ursus Americanus: The Idea of a Bear,’ Fox examines her responsibility to the bears she has come to know in their trespassed habitat. Like Steeves and other contributors to this volume, she also ponders the etymological and semantic quandaries that accrue to us when we attempt to speak about such knowledge. We must violate ‘traditional grammatical rules’: each bear for example, is a ‘he,’ a ‘she,’ a ‘who’ with an individual temperament, not an ‘it’ or a ‘that’ with merely a species identity.

In the tradition of Herman Melville in Moby-Dick, and more recently, of Loren Eiseley and Barry Lopez, Fox looks at animals through the dual lenses of science and myth. Like Eiseley in the title essay of The Star Thrower, or Lopez in Of Wolves and Men, Fox seems hopeful that some verbal concatenation of empirical detail and mystical insight might inspire the reader’s own exploration and discovery. Her cross-species, social relationship with bears has changed her forever, and the experience she describes is available to all who expand their conceptions of what is possible.”

Hmm. My essay contains empirical detail and mystical insight. Cool.

While I'm on the Subject

Excerpt from the still-unfinished hawk essay:

Lengthening days of summer heat and stillness now. The tree that houses my hawks is exploding with green and lush leaves. I spend as much time as I can spare every day observing them. Kneeling in front of an open third-floor window, heavy binoculars in hand, I focus and refocus the lens, following their movements. The hawks are present in these moments, still visible if I look closely, but will soon be completely hidden beneath a twisted tangle of dense, leafy branches.

The female seems about two feet long, the feathers of her back blurring from auburn to intricate patterns in shades of cinnamon, her underbelly a pale, milky vanilla-white encircled by a dark band. She holds herself with a palpable air of dignity and grace. The male is noticeably smaller, his colors darker, more monochromatic, less vibrant, though still impressive. His underbelly is beige, not pure white, and his face, head and beak are a deep brown so mottled it’s almost impossible to tell where his features begin and end. The tails of juvenile hawks are grayish-brown and won’t begin changing till the bird’s second year; these hawks flaunt tails of adulthood’s familiar russet red shade. The hawks have exaggerated, bony brow ridges which shade the large black eyes from direct sunlight. They appear angry, face locked in a perpetual scowl, eyes protruding above the cere, the soft, mustard-yellow skin where the beak begins. If I notice them in the trees from my perch near the window, they must certainly notice me, with vision eight times more accurate and powerful than mine.

Red-tails are masters of flight, using updrafts and thermals in the air to their advantage. The distinctive aerial behavior is used to protect territory—which can be up to two square miles—and for elaborate courtship rituals during which they swoop up and down and try to touch one another with their talons. They can have a wingspread of 43-56 inches, which doesn’t surprise me. When they patrol their territory, they soar and dive, in an undulating orchestration, wings outstretched and reaching, almost touching the sky. Watching them I hold my breath and believe that I too could take flight so effortlessly and naturally if I tried.

I shift my weight to my other knee and refocus the binoculars. I see a flash of white and am startled to be looking into the faces of two baby hawks, something I’ve been hoping to see. They hardly look real, completely white and covered in fluffy down. I want to reach out my hand and feel their plush softness. I am certain I saw stuffed animals in their likeness the last time I visited the gift shop at the Pittsburgh Zoo. The chicks’ eyes are already large and noticeable and seem much too big for their heads, not yet forming the same scowl as the ones their parents wear proudly. They move awkwardly, bobbing their heads up out of the nest, hesitating, standing, falling down clumsily. I guess them to be only a few weeks old, and they will remain in the nest for another month before they fledge. The male stands right outside the nest, looking for his mate to return with prey to feed the chicks. I remain silent and unmoved, waiting and hoping for the chance to witness this act of mutual parenting.

I detail everything I notice about the hawks in a green spiral notebook, so I won’t forget. Later, I will turn the observations into something larger, something tangible, perhaps an essay. It is these details that will breathe life into the prose on the page.

Someone once told me that God was to be found in the details. I don’t know if I believe this, but I do know that noticing the details allows one to understand the world in unexpected ways. It will be the details that make a difference.

End excerpt:
I am one of those people who pay attention to everything, looking for signs, portents all around. things that eventually refuse to be ignored.