Wild apples grow all over our property. They are terrible, inedible, I told someone the other day.
Our dogs start foraging apples in September. They’re still digging them up through the snow in January. Deer gather under the trees to feast, leaving their two-toed tracks and their scat. Skunks, raccoons, birds, beetles, slugs, flies, worms – all eaters of the apples. Are they any good? Nah, I say. Inedible. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 14: 68 words, TOTAL = 2338; 57,662 remaining
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I was the researcher/presenter at our monthly book group meeting today. We discussed Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was a hit; conversation could have gone on all day. Americanah is a memorable, heartwrenching love story. It is also about race and hair, says Adichie. I hope that piques your interest. Adichie is a Nigerian who continued her upper-level education in the US, an experience that deeply informs her novel.
Researching the author was as stirring as reading her book. Adichie is a “happy feminist” and a keenly insightful observer of culture. Her TED talk, “We should all be feminists,” is one of the most-viewed of all time. Another one is called, “The danger of a single story.” How many of us have adopted a reductive view of another culture, place, or person based on limited evidence? How many of us have felt pigeon-holed ourselves, categorized by a superficial understanding of who we are? Americanah explores the unfamiliar – from several vantage points. It also abounds with the all-too-familiar complexities of being human. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 13: 172 words, TOTAL = 2270; 57,730 remaining My students have been writing about the transitional experience of starting college. For many, a move to this 3000-student campus in Bangor, Maine is world-altering, untethering. Some have come twenty miles from home; others have moved from sprawling US cities far away, or across an ocean. The distance traveled is not necessarily proportional to the degree of upheaval. The array of financial and emotional obstacles, undermining setbacks, fears and weighted histories is daunting, but the vast majority will emerge stronger. They inspire me.
Circumstances might seem stacked against our survival, and yet…we persevere. Daily I walk by this tree, felled by storm, bent double to the ground, scoured out, a lost cause. But look -- countertwist, encapsulate the wound, reach for the light. Monarch butterflies bent towards extinction, but here they are, returned to my backyard. This one on a milkweed is poised to take on a 3000-mile fall migration. So delicate, so fragile, and yet… My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 12: 156 words, TOTAL = 2098; 57,902 remaining How do I live up to the devotion of this sentient being who waits at the bottom of the stairs? Who pushes into a trot when I turn to see if she’s keeping up? Who clambers to her feet with expectation, every time I rise from my chair?
Kate collapsed on the slippery kitchen floor yesterday. She fell last week, climbing up the mudroom stairs. I pick her up, massage the bony swells of her knees, and try to deserve her unfaltering fidelity. But -- must I respond with caresses every time she nudges with her long nose, panting her putrid breath in my face? I feel ashamed when I turn her away. Devotion comes with a weight we don’t always cherish. I try to come close and meet her piercing gaze at least once a day. I tell her, “Thank you for taking such good care of me. You are my dear friend.” My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 11: 154 words, TOTAL = 1942; 58,058 remaining Online sources tell me that my grandchild-to-be has grown to the size of a large cabbage. Why is it that even after bearing four of my own children, the idea of a living being growing inside my daughter’s body feels miraculous, or impossible, like some wild sci-fi plotline? On the other hand, the idea of species replication also strikes me as the simplest idea imaginable – a reminder of what we share with all life on Earth. Ours is nothing but one regenerative technique out of millions.
I just finished a stunning novel called The Overstory, by Richard Powers. The close relationship between humans and trees – genetic, biologic, and emotional – was already clear to me. Powers’ book clarified and expanded that relationship beyond anything I’ve experienced. It is a rich, complex, masterful story. Not long ago, my daughter’s daughter-to-be was the size of one of these acorns. May she grow strong roots, spreading branches, and comfortable companionship with her vast, extended, Earthbound family. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 10: 162 words, TOTAL = 1788; 58,212 remaining You know those hot dogs on the long, rotating tubes in the gas station quik-mart? Imagine someone tries to put a bun over one of those hot dogs while it’s still turning on the rollers, then the bun gets twisted into the hot rollers and gets mangled up into clumps and the hot dog gets twisted sideways by the random clumps and the hot dog is thinking, “this doesn’t feel right.”
That’s how I slept last night. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 9: 77 words, TOTAL = 1626; 58,374 remaining A monochromatic sky hung high over the back fields this morning. I never know if that 12-acre patch of grass, woods, and pond will liberate or constrict me. Today it contained…all things.
An eagle soared high, high above the field, conducting systematic, unhurried surveillance. Its broad, rectangular wings, powerful and effortless. Insistent breezes rustled crowns of crowded foliage –maple, apple, poplar, oak, ash, white pine, hemlock – orchestral conversations. I am tree illiterate, but I listen, mesmerized. Mushrooms abound – virulent fleshy growths, children’s book illustrations, a hamburger bun, a bundt cake. They are complex signs of seasonal decay, and they reproduce with spores in the millions, like tiny trees. I found two dead voles in the trails mowed through shoulder-high grass. The dogs ignored them. I lifted each gray, furred body by its tiny tail, observed the bucktoothed mouth, gave each a moment of respectful grace, and tossed the body gently into thicker bracken, to settle back into earth, undisturbed. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 8: 159 words, TOTAL = 1549; 58,451 remaining Today a friend of mine emailed me a series of charming first-day-of-school pictures of her grandchildren. First-day-of-school photos are a great American tradition. My sister-in-law sent a thirteenth, front porch, first-day-of-school photo of my nephew, packed for college. My son-in-law sent a first-day-of-school photo of my oldest daughter, Anna, today. She’s starting a dual PhD program, and she looks totally adorable.
“Maybe you’ll send me your first day photo!” my friend wrote to me. Oops. I forgot. Here is an end-of-the-first-day-of-school photo. Notice the wine, great American tradition for teachers. Actually, it was a great day – 39 new young people in my life for a spell. “Writing is the sun and the moon,” I tell them; “What do I mean by that?” “They give clarity.” “They are essential.” “They shed light on everything.” “The moon is actually a reflection.” Excellent! They write their name stories, but when it’s their turn, they never read. They speak their stories – 100% of them in 17 classes over five years. Writing intimidates. They think they don’t know the language they’re supposed to use. Find your own voice on the page, I say. It’s worth hearing. I don’t want generic writing. Lots of nodding heads, which makes me feel good. One young woman falls asleep on the table in front of her – hair fanned around her head. I had to walk to the back of the room and jiggle her arm for several seconds to wake her up. I love teaching. There is always something new. Day 7: 251 words, TOTAL = 1390; 58,610 remaining I love the respite of rainy days. I’m puttering indoors, paying bills, catching up on laundry, preparing for my first day of teaching tomorrow afternoon, and READING. I usually only read in bed, but now that I’m in two book groups, day-reading is validated. Normally it feels too much like decadence or avoidance. Book group deadlines give day-reading the lovely illusion of virtue. I MUST read all day. I’d like to spend some time writing about books. Christopher Hitchens’ book, pictured, was not a book group assignment, but it would be a good one. I expected something inflammatory but found this book far more replete with truth than with preposterousness. Some highlights that resonate:
Does this shock people? Kindness towards other living beings is innate in most humans. Rules only exclude, at best, or incite violence at worst. Rules shame more than they love. Certainly organized religion has been good for many, but it has destroyed far more. Shouldn’t we abandon the destroyer and find good elsewhere? The thing Hitchens misses is the need for shared community in seeking our best nature. That is no small thing. Neither is the need for individual reflection. I support dis-organized religion, without rules. If your religion makes you the best person you can be, if it opens you to love and eschews judgmental righteousness, then I support it. Once there are power structures, there is only trouble. I feel the stirrings of mystery, even accepting scientific evidence. I sense a life force that I am willing to think of as divine. It inspires me to reflection, to recognize both wonder and humility, to try to be better. I even feel as though something outside of myself, bigger than I can understand, communicates something important that I should try to grasp. If that is God, then God is pretty great. If it is not, that’s okay too. Day 6: 362 words, TOTAL = 1139 words; 58,861 remaining I have an on-again off-again relationship with the piano. We’ve been together all my life, but the piano surely feels the ambivalence of my commitment. There have been stretches of time when I devote daily hours, giving the best I can give, trying to grow with the piano. We make beautiful music together. Then my interest fades. I drift off, pay no attention for weeks, or months. I walk past my sweet spinet every day, ignoring it, or even feeling a twinge of disdain. I close the cover over the keys. Our days are past, I think, sullenly. When I finally return, we are awkward together. Our intercourse is unnatural, full of fumbling and cringes. Often, an outside force finally reunites us.
I provided music for our church service today, at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor. In preparation, I spent more time at the keyboard. Over the last few weeks, my affection has returned. The piano gives so much back to me – how is that I repeatedly forget how powerfully moving our time together can be? What other relationships get neglected in other lives? There must be many. Life is complicated. Day 5: 192 words = TOTAL 777; 58,638 remaining |
AuthorRobin Clifford Wood is an award-winning author, poet, and writing teacher. She lives in central Maine with her husband, loves to be outdoors, and enjoys ever-expanding horizons through her children, grandchildren, and granddogs. Archives
January 2024
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