The Sunday Drive

July 7, 2017July 7, 2017 / Lisa / 4 Comments

Last Sunday we took our friend Jenny and went for a drive along some nearby logging roads. It brought back so many memories.

Crossing Troublesome Creek on Sunday (using a bridge!)

Growing up, we often went for Sunday drives. If mom chose the location, it most likely would be driving the neighborhoods she grew up in. She’d reminisce and tell us stories about things like her dad getting drunk and throwing bread at her across the table. Or having to learn how to butcher rabbits. Or Aunty and the day she showed up. She saw their chimney fire, stopped to help them, also saw a single dad trying to raise a daughter, and stayed as their housekeeper. And once mom married and moved away, she became our surrogate granny.

Aunty helping me play

Those drives weren’t too boring because I’d sit in the back seat and daydream adventures and my own stories. And if we were lucky, and mom and dad felt flush, we’d all get the treat of burgers.

Mom at the cabin.

When dad picked the Sunday destination, a lot of times we’d end up driving logging roads. Mom would pack a picnic lunch. Dad would bring the stack of gold pans. Us kids would get to sit on the tailgate of the truck as we slowly bounced our way up into the woods and mountains.

Dad surveying flood damage

I daydreamed those drives, too, but the stories were different. They almost always involved me slipping off that tailgate, running away into the woods, finding some long-lost tribe of Native Americans, or some My Side Of The Mountain type, where I would live forever out there in the mountains.

Bridal Veil Falls

So here I am, many years later, driving old logging roads with a mountain-kind-of-guy. At home where I always wanted to be. Still daydreaming through those woods though, making up stories as I bounce along in the truck.

Jack’s Pass on Sunday

Words Vs. Plants

May 13, 2017 / Lisa / 10 Comments

I recently joined a plant identification group while trying to identify a plant I found in the woods. There are currently, I believe, around four thousand international members of this group.

Identified by friends and local conservation district – not by the online group. Daphne mezereum

I also belong to a writer’s group, which has thousands of international members.

It’s hard to avoid comparing the two. And it’s been a bit of a shock.

Within the plant group, a person can seek all sorts of help around identification, habitat, and so on. The members consist of those who can easily list off the latin names and those who know only the common names. But wow. The rudeness. And I’m not one of those types easily offended.

Recently a person posted a photo of a plant that looked suspiciously like blueberries. She found it in a raised bed where she had planted blueberries. She thought it was one of her plants. Who wouldn’t? But when she ate a berry, she realized it was different. She sought help identifying the plant, and instead was slammed with hundreds of people belittling her for eating something she didn’t know. Many of the responses were quite cruel.

Within the writer’s group, members run the gamut from experienced journalists and novelists to raw beginners.

Recently a person posted a question about her fear switching from freelance journalism to attempting a novel. She sought help and advice. She was slammed with hundreds of people offering help, listing resources, encouraging her to try something new, and excited on her behalf.

Books on the craft of writing, waiting for tea and highlighters

Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t one of those broad generalizations. There are rude responses in the writer’s group once in a while, and there are kind responses on the plant site. But the percentages are skewed. On the plant side, the kind responses are in a minority. It’s the opposite on the writer’s group.

This has me wondering what makes the difference. I don’t think it’s tied to ‘writing’ or ‘plants’.

Is it social media? The freedom the internet gives one to say things they wouldn’t to another’s face? That’s simplistic and an overly used excuse.

What my yard would look like without the guidance of friends

Is it art vs. science? The rude responses on the plant site seem to overwhelmingly be from those who can spout Latin names without typos. Is an artist more willing to share, and learn from sharing, where the science type leans to snobbery? I don’t believe this for an instant.

So what’s going on?

It’s the administrators. Those who do the writer’s group monitor things closely. If a comment is uncalled for, the person is called on it. I had many years as a facilitator of a writer’s group to understand the need for quick involvement. In the plant group, there are rules you agree to when you sign on, and supposedly there are administrators out there somewhere. Occasionally, like the thread about blueberries, these guys step in and put their foot down. But by the time they do, the thread has gone on way too long and the damage is done.

In other words, it seems we can’t be left alone in our play groups without our parents. Or at least some of us.

So I’m going to drop the plant group. Who needs that in our short lives? I bet there are other plant groups out there that are more professional, and that have members more like writers.

Then I’m going to go soak in the writer’s group for a while to clean off the plant group.

In case you are wondering about identification, or want to describe it in a story – it’s a daylily (hermerocallis)

Folded Between Pages

April 21, 2017April 21, 2017 / Lisa / 2 Comments

Tahereh Mafi, in Shatter Me, wrote ‘I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.’

Interwoven web of words, comprised of letters, created by sentences. So many things in that quote resonate with me. Can’t you feel that complete immersion in the story?

For those of you who love books, doesn’t this make you remember a favorite, maybe from when you were a child, that opened the world of stories for you?

And for those of you who, like me, spent so much time in the story world as a child, teenager, young woman, don’t you recognize yourself in some of her phrases? While I didn’t live with the absence of human relationships, I do realize now, looking back, how life passed by without me seeing the real world for the imaginary.

I came across this quote in Goodreads. I haven’t read Shatter Me but since Ms. Mafi just looked into my storied soul, I am going to.

Mt Baring