Upcoming Workshops ~ Story Mapping

It's been a long while since I last gave a nature journaling workshop (thanks, pandemic), but now I've got two coming up, one in August and one in September, bot on the theme of story mapping.

A story map is a visual representation of a journey that may include:

• a map depicting the route followed (which may be highly stylized and need not be to scale)
• locations on the map where interesting things were sighted or took place
• illustrations of scenery, flora and fauna seen along the way, and companions, among other things
• lists of birds, wildflowers, or other elements of nature
• anything else the story cartographer wants to use

Story maps can be made both while on the journey or after the fact.

Last summer, when all of my adventures took place close to home, I had a lot of fun making story maps of  kayak trips on local ponds and lakes. Mapping these trips deepened both my observation skills and my enjoyment while on the water. Even though I may not remember a lot about any of these trips, I only have to look at my maps and all of the details come flooding back to me.

I'm super excited to share this journaling technique with two groups this summer and fall.

The first workshop will take place on Saturday, August 7, at Hidden Valley Nature Center in Jefferson from 1-4 p.m. We'll be walking the Crossbill Loop and journaling as we go. Register here.

The second will be part of the Nature Journaling in Acadia conference that will be held at the Schoodic Institute September 19-21, a three-day extravaganza of nature journaling workshops and activities that is going to be positively amazing. Register here.

I'd love to see you at one of these workshops!

Book Stack ~ June 2021

A monthly post about my progress toward finishing a very large stack of books. Past months' posts:

January 2021

February 2021 

March 2021

April 2021

May 2021

The theme for June's reading was mystery and suspense, mostly because I wanted something scary to read in the tent when we went camping over Memorial Day weekend, so I bought the bottom three books in the photo. I don't know why I thought I'd have time to read three books. As it turned out, I only read a couple of pages of two of them. It also turned out that none of them was all that scary, but they were good.

The Whispering House, by Elizabeth Brooks, is a modern gothic with innocent heroine, big scary house, mysterious male. Even though it wasn't that scary, it had a nice amount of suspense. I have to admit to being a little bothered by the bad boyfriend element to the suspense, but I suppose that's what Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester were as well, and maybe Max de Winter also, so I guess it's part of the Gothic tradition.

The Unquiet Grave, by Sharyn McCrumb, a fictionalization of a historic murder of a young woman. I used to read a lot of Sharyn McCrumb, but it's been a while, and I forgot what a master storyteller she is. She weaves history and local color into a fascinating tale.

Careless in Red, by Elizabeth George, picks up after Inspector Linley's wife is killed and he goes on a long hike on the Cornish coast to try to numb his pain. Despite the lurid red cover, this one wasn't too scary, either, and there wasn't much about the hike (I was really hoping for a tent-based nail-biter to read while in the tent). But Elizabeth George is also a brilliant story teller, so it was a page-turner even without the chills. I'm discovering that I'm not a huge fan of the multiple-point-of-view novel, but this one is very well done, with each character drawn uniquely and with a distinct narrative voice, so that it's not confusing about who is who and why they're in the story--you just trust that their purpose will become clear in time.

Unspeakable Things, by Jess Lourey, I ordered after a crime conference I "attended" remotely, Lourey being one of the presenters. In it the young narrator tries to solve the mystery of who is kidnapping and molesting boys in her neighborhood while also living in fear of being hurt herself. It was good and suspenseful if not downright creepy.

Not one of these books counts toward diminishing my book stack, since I purchased them all, my resolution to buy no fiction this year having flown completely out the window.

What have you been reading lately?

P.S. If you're wondering what's going on with my book, I'll be sending out an update in my newsletter this Friday. To be one of the first in the know, sign up here.

Island Time

The last weekend of May we returned to Hermit Island, where we've gone every May since the twins were toddlers, missing only two years (last year, because of the pandemic, and the year before, because I had to work). Now that my kids are so old, I'm cognizant that every time we do something together as a family, it could very well be the last time. So nothing was going to prevent me from making this trip happen, not work, not weather.

And, oh, did the weather try (as did work). True to form, we had a cold, rainy weekend, despite this having been the driest, sunniest, most beautiful spring and early summer I've ever witnessed in Maine. (We're willing to rent ourselves out to go camping in any drought-stricken locale to bring on the rain.) Sunday night it downright poured, though most of the heavy rain kindly contained itself to times we were in the tent. And you know what? It didn't matter. We've done the drill a million times--keeping everything inside the tent or car, packing extra clothes and blankets, huddling around the fire to stay warm.

The weather didn't dampen the fun, although we didn't do a lot--we didn't hike to the head of the island or bike along the lagoon. I did a bit of lazy birdwatching. We sat on the beach and watched the waves. We cooked and ate--a lot. As much as I wanted to get all nostalgic for those camping trips past (you can see a photo progression of them here), and those freaking adorable little campers, I decided that camping with big kids is even more awesome.The boys had a friend and their bikes, and they careened off to the beach whenever they felt like it. Zephyr made beef stew and Emmet fixed cocktails for the mamas. They split wood and set up their own tents and hauled water (complainingly, as always) and finally learned how to wash camping dishes.

I recently was posed the question: when was the last time you tried something new? I racked my brain for a long, long time before I came up with something (sailing lessons, two years ago). I suppose a pandemic isn't a time to try new things, so I'll use that as my excuse. And now that the worst is over, and we're all finally vaccinated, it's probably time for me to get out there and try new things (or at least leave the county). But there's also something to be said for revisiting the same thing from a new perspective, and with taller kids.

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Finish It Friday ~ Garden Beds

 I really had zero to do with this project, so there's no good reason for me to post about it, except that it looks so great! Earlier this month, C finished the raised-bed garden that he's been working on for at least five years, possibly longer, methodically building beds, paving the intervening space with bricks, and, finally, fencing the whole thing in. This shows an amazing level of stick-to-itiveness, and is further proof, in case we needed it, that C is the ant and I'm the grasshopper. I'm all about the instant gratification, and once I get a project in my craw, I want to get it done as quickly as possible.

And, look! We already have peas. Like tons of peas. Normally, you hope to have peas by the 4th of July here, so this is astoundingly early. We've also had one crop of spinach and we're working on the second. Radishes, lettuce, and arugula are coming out daily, and the garlic is almost ready. Tomatoes and peppers are on their way. I dug up a photo of what the garden used to look like, ten years ago, and you can see it's come a long way.

What's growing in your garden?

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Book Stack ~ May 2021

A monthly post about my progress toward finishing a very large stack of books. Past months' posts:

January 2021

February 2021 

March 2021

April 2021

I finally emerged from this year's reading slump and made it through a good-sized pile in May. My theme for the month was short and fragmented--I just couldn't get enough of prose poems/lyric essays/micro essays/flash nonfiction/whatever you want to call it.

In the nonfiction/poetry realm (I'm not sure where the line is for some of these selections), I read:

Sound Machine by Rachel Zucker. A kind of meta-exploration of confessional poetry and the life of the poet/mother/wife as she writes the poems and teaches poetry in a form I'm not sure how to describe: really short paragraphs, sentences broken into stanzas--proesms?

Bluets by Maggie Nelson. This is the go-to book whenever anyone talks about lyric essay or fragmented writing, and while I enjoyed the style, I was a little more meh  on the concept--obsession over a color and obsession over an ex-boyfriend. I mean, ugh, get over him and move on.

Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly. I loved these "micro-memoirs," some only a sentence long, most around a page, and I just love Fennelly's spirit that leaps right off the page in humor and insight.

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay. This book is a joy to read. Gay set out to write about one delight per day for a year and ended up with around 100 short meditations on quotidian aspects of days spent in gardens, coffee shops, and airports, and finds something wonderful in everyday, ordinary things. I did not want it to end.

Flash Count Diary by Darcey Steinke. This book veers away from the ultra-short prose theme of the month, being a memoir in longish essays about a year in the midst of menopause. I'd heard about it as a book about "menopause and whales," which intrigued me. Whales do make a significant appearance--the killer whale being one of the few animals other than humans that experiences menopause--but there's a lot more to it as Steinke explores the medical, cultural, and scientific approaches to this stage in life that half of the human population goes through yet is poorly understood, little discussed, pathologized, and stigmatized.

Writing Wild by Kathryn Aalto. I really enjoyed this book of mini biographies (back to the miniature theme) of women nature writers of England, the US, and Canada. I was familiar with many of the writers featured but enjoyed learning more about them, and I was thrilled to be introduced to a few I'd never heard of. And I love any nature writing anthology or collection that isn't just "a bunch of old white dudes plus Rachel Carson." It's also beautifully illustrated, which is fun.

Onto fiction, and back to fragments, I read Jenny Offill's novel Weather, about a woman juggling motherhood and climate anxiety in near-future New York City. The fragmentary nature of the prose is a perfect fit for the mental state our modern times engender.

Finally, I finally read a book a friend gave me many years ago, a collection of short stories by Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women. Oh! These stories are so good! I read a lot of short stories in grad school, and so many of them leave me cold, but these are so colorful and lively and interesting and heartbreaking and funny and all the feels. I can't believe I've never encountered Berlin anywhere else. This would have been a brilliant book to read when I was trying to be a short story writer. Go forth and find yourself a copy!

Watching the World Unfold

So much has happened this month! The babies turned 16 and 16 and 20, which is...like...I don't even know what to think about having a 20-year-old child. I need more time to process it, like another 20 years. In the meantime, outside, the grass has grown and the trees have made leaves. Flowers have come and gone on the alders and aspens and apples. We already have buttercups and blue-eyed grass in the meadow. Does it seem like spring is happening faster than it's supposed to? Does it seem like everything is happening faster than it's supposed to? (See: babies, above.)

Right now the whole world (or at least my tiny corner of it) is that perfect shade of new green where every leaf and blade is fresh and unmarked by drought or caterpillar nibble, and I want it to stay like this forever, except that I'm as much in love with the caterpillars that nibble the leaves (excluding the brown-tailed moth caterpillars; I don't love those at all) and the warblers that nibble the caterpillars as I am with the green. The other day I was watching a dragonfly whir around my yard and I saw a Phoebe dart after it and I didn't even know which one to root for. This is why I can't watch sports; I want everyone to win--the leaves, the bugs, the birds.

In other news, a painted turtle crossed our driveway the other day, heading away from a patch of soil Curry just rototilled. I'm hoping it laid eggs (and that raccoons don't find the eggs; okay, I'll root for turtle eggs over raccoons). We have tree swallows nesting in at least three birdhouses, bluebirds (for the first time) in another, chickadees in another, and a family of phoebes under the deck. Someone is building a nest foundation of moss in yet another house, and I'm hoping it's tufted titmice. We had a nestful last year and they were the most attentive parents, bringing bugs and clearing out the fecal pellets (unlike the swallows who live in insect-infested filth), and the babies chirped so sweetly from inside the box. I came very close to seeing them fledged but missed it due to impatience. I'm hoping for a second chance.

And this week so many butterflies appeared: tiger swallowtails, azures, American coppers, common ringlets, and a possible sighting of a harvester (the only carnivorous butterfly; if that doesn't give you nightmares I don't know what will). There's simply too much going on to waste time on things like work. I'm working on a plan to reconfigure my life. It's not fleshed out yet, but whatever it eventually entails, I know I need to leave May wide open so that I have time to watch the world unfold and contemplate how old my children have become.

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World of Wonders

I've started a new project on Instagram--a #bookstagram series combining to of my favorite things, books and Fiesta dinnerware, #bookfiesta. Once or twice a week I pair a book I've recently read and loved with a complementary piece of Fiesta. I love the juxtaposition of something totally frivolous (my dish collection) and something deeply consequential (really good books). I also love picking our the dish that will go best with a beautiful cover design. And I love sharing what I read with the world. 

Today's post is of World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, alongside a p86 (that's produced after 1986 for you Fiesta ware novices out there) rose individual creamer, and some white lilacs. It's extra-special because I also reviewed the book at Literary Mama for this month's issue. My review begins:

The axolotl is a pink amphibian with dark eyes, feathery gills, and a disarmingly human-like smile. One gazes serenely from the cover of World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, lovingly painted by illustrator Fumi Mini Nakamura and tucked in among a colorful collage of magnificent plants and animals, some familiar (flamingo, narwhal, monarch butterfly) and others unknown to me (potoo bird, ribbon eel, southern cassowary). The axolotl’s cryptic, pink, Mona Lisa smile amid this kaleidoscope of wild creatures is an irresistible lure inviting readers to pick up the book and behold the wonders held within.

You can read the rest of the review here, and you can follow me on Instagram @andrea.lani.

P.S. If you receive these posts via email, the service that makes that happen, Feedburner, is going away at the end of July. You can subscribe to my newsletter here, or you can visit my blog site here to stay in touch.