1.
A pale pink, crinkled chunk of limestone the size of a small melon. A Mexican banded quartzite. Pyramidal chatoyant tiger’s eye. Citrine and quartz cluster. A nugget of pyrite. Two stones carved and bound. A Griffon vulture feather. Two owl feathers. A plaster cast stag beetle. Small dish with a sgraffito crow. Chock of wood with a beeswax candle placed on top. Two hardback books with spines that carry my name, and titles that orient towards the earth and the sky. These are the items I return to my desk having cleaned it, and installed an entirely new computer system. Natural items. Nature paraphernalia to soften the edges of the equipment that supports my life. The hoardings and giftings of a nature writer. Except I don’t feel like one.
I’ve never felt like much of anything for long. I have started to wonder lately, what does it mean to be a nature writer? If I knew, would I feel part of something? Would that be important? I know myself better than literary genres; that feeling part of things isn’t a common experience for me (once I’m in, I tend to want out). Except for at the most abstracted level of being a human animal scratching out a living in the environment in which I’ve landed. But we all know this. I think I am supposed to be sure of more, because knowing affects the outcome. Except I don’t think it does.
There are things I know more peripheral than this. How air trapped in my office re-joins when I open the window, expanding and connecting everything like an invisible river finding itself around obstacles. Let’s go with one owl, no two - a shared language in this house - the height of owls a metric for the opening of tall windows at night. How my stomach coos like a wood pigeon in the morning as I pull my right foot into my lap to write, making a triangle shape and stable base of myself. How my mind turns plane noise into an ocean, or a volcano, or nameless arrival. But always into better things (for which I’m grateful). These things only make me human, nothing more.
Look around my walls and there are no certificates, though I have many that sort me into categories of title and achievement. Each hologram of approval illuminates only the thin space offered by an envelope inside a narrow drawer. Instead, a linocut of a hand. A shadowy figure in the middle of nowhere looking into a well. A donkey on a rock with no way down staring at a small ladder of no consequence. The things I know have no direction. No sense of inside and out. Still, the world goes on. Categories like pillars crumble. I was born into this world wailing, and I still do now. What does it matter whether I am this or that. I am here.
2.
pale pink, crinkled chunk
carved and bound
stag beetle
sgraffito crow
titles that orient
hoardings and giftings
human animal scratching
more peripheral than this
an invisible river
a shared language
a triangle shape
human, nothing more
looking into a well
3.
Instructions for unsure writers
1. Make a descriptive study of where you sit.
2. Stop when you are done, don’t edit.
3. Scan for words of resonance, and list.
4. Give your list the title ‘I am’
5. Read out loud for the answer.
Have you read Weathering yet? If so, I would be grateful for a few more glowing or kind reviews wherever you bought your copy. I am told that ‘50 is the magic number’. If you haven’t read it yet, why not add it to your autumn TBR book pile? Put it on your wish list and read later! Your support means the world, thank you. xo
Ooh I loved this Ruth, I really am a fan of numbered pieces. And thank you for the writing suggestion, I shall give it a go. One owl, or two, love that. I love hearing other peoples’ shared languages. We had a fan heater in our first van that we named Wilson, after the Castaway football, and all heaters since then have been Wilsons.
This is such an elegant takedown of that dreadful phrase. Thank you! I've been meaning to write a review of 'Weathering' but it had such an effect on me that I must read it again before I can do it justice. However I'll leave something brief on the place that must not be named, which is apparently important for sales