Something I knew I wanted to do but not exactly how to do it was to pair my work with a regular newsletter — something something cultivating community in an owned space because the bird app blee blah and so on. I can’t stand being at the beginning of things. Middles are very nice because you already know what you’re doing and things feel like they’re moving along, you know? ALAS, we can’t have middles without beginnings.
I’ve released the first letter this morning as a teensy introduction to the places that are special to me, and to lay some groundwork for what it could look like as I go and to get me over the First Post Hump.
Part the First.
It feels peculiar to open this newsletter at a time when I am most elsewhere from my place. I see my marshes less as it gets colder, as the sunlight dims and it becomes more and more difficult to go to visit with them while meeting obligations. Often, I wish that I was seeing them less because I was also sleeping, or hibernating, or migrating, and I daydream it up that way when I’m feeling melancholy about it.
Continue reading on Substack ⟶
And I’ve returned just two months ago from another place, one that I’ve dreamed about since childhood, that has permeated my skin in so short a time and which I know I will dream about and reach back towards for the rest of my life. It is so strange to hold that place in my mind while I am at my marshes, and think about all of us on the same world, that things are still happening here and there, that beings are dying and eating and being born and breathing and seeing the sky in those places and these places both.
As it goes, I plan to make a little digest each time of new work that I’ve shared, and include some stories about what I saw and heard and tasted between issues. You can read both here, and there, if you like; I will keep the overlap very small, but in such a way that you don’t have to feel you’re missing anything if you simply prefer one or the other.
While combing for images for this post, I loved this one of the wildflower meadow at Treefriend’s Marsh, from the very end of September. I am a sucker for this particular edge of the wildflower meadow and the way it changes throughout the year. A path runs north to south, and you can view both sunrise and sunset through the matrix of stems, leaves, and petals.
Currently this meadow is mowed — once things have mostly died back as winter approaches, the sanctuary’s caretakers cut back the dead matter above ground to encourage growth of the perennial flowers next spring. The cuttings are piled at the meadow edges, both to gradually compost and to provide nesting and burrowing material. I love watching the huge wintertime crews of local Robins grubbing through it for lingering bugs.
The storm pounding the US is hitting me here in northeast Massachusetts, too — but eerily, because it is unseasonably warm, and what is snow in most other places is pounding rain here. Today’s 54-degree high will plummet to a 15-degree low tonight, a dramatic initiation to this gray part of the year.
Stay safe and warm, friends. See you soon.