Such a time last week for my life and my writing practice. Let me count the ways...
On Monday I submitted an essay to a little magazine in Colorado looking for thoughts on what it means in our hearts to help ‘the other.’ Seemed like a good opportunity to revisit our church’s two mission trips to post-Katrina New Orleans five+ years ago, and so I did.
The majority of the dozen or so adults who traveled south to work shared their thoughts about how it felt now, so many years later. The essay, entitled ‘Katrina’s reach,’ totaled out at 2500 words with my first explaining what we did, then letting those who went tell their stories.
Then I got word yesterday that the little Crestone magazine, Desert Call, will indeed publish ‘Katrina’s reach’ this summer. I had also asked about having it published in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio newspaper, and got a ‘yes’ on that, too. Lots of pictures will be included in both publications.
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Most of you are aware, I hope, that I am in the process of writing a book connecting Emily Dickinson to one of my favorite places in the world, Hog Island, Maine, through the work of Mabel Loomis Todd. It was Mrs. Todd who took on the arduous task of sorting and recopying Emily’s poetry into the three earliest editions that made it to the public between 1890 and 1896.
Much has been written about Mrs. Todd’s work with Emily’s poetry and letters, while little has been written about her love of Nature. It was that love that encouraged her to purchase large tracts of Hog Island c. 1909 in order to save it as one of the largest untouched wilderness islands on Maine’s coast. By 1911, the Todd family had built a rustic family camp where they spent many summers thereafter.
Last week a couple of very special things happened re: my Hog Island project:
First, I received an email from a woman in New York City who moderates the Facebook page for Jerome Charyn’s book, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson. ‘LenoreNYC’ and I chatted via email a bit, and then on Sunday she posted links to my Dressy Adventuress blog for all of their 8,000+ readers to follow. (Deep gulp...)
For the Secret Life... page, see: http://www.facebook.com/SecretLifeOfEmilyDickinson
Scroll down a bit to find the entries about my Dressy Adventuress blog; or find that blog @ http://thedressyadventuress.blogspot.com/
Second, Chris Speh, who spent many summers on Hog Island as guest of Mabel Todd’s daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, gifted my writing project with a great new picture of Mrs. Bingham and a series of remembrances by another Bingham family friend, a woman known in the writing only as Willow. Thanks so much, Chris! A handful of Hog Island lovers have read it and have thoroughly enjoyed the observations of life on the island that Willow tells.
My writing on Mrs. Todd’s Hog Island continues...
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Back when I was a kid, I was smitten with the science fiction genre at a time when the Russians launched Sputnik and the US space program was not yet named NASA.
As I recall, the book that grabbed me was Robert Heinlein’s Have Space Suit Will Travel (1958), a coming-of-age novel about a kid who just wants to go to the moon. He gets his big chance in a soap contest, and even though he wins, he loses due to multiple winners with the same answer. His consolation prize? A real, working space suit. Ergo, have spacesuit, will travel. Sounds a bit like the old Paladin television show, eh?
What makes this book so engaging is the real science about space travel -- written at a time before anybody ever went up there. I’ve been taking a few notes on the science and will share copies with grandkids for summer reading. The book is proving to still be a real favorite of mine.
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Do you know about TED, the website? I encourage you to find it: http://www.ted.com/index.php
Though TED stands for technology, engineering, and design, speakers they gather to talk to live audiences go off on all kinds of great topics. Last Friday they posted a brand new lecture by Dr. Brene Brown (University of Houston) from the latest TED conference in Long Beach held earlier this month.
As far as I know, this is Brown’s third speech with TED in which she focuses on wholehearted living. For those of us trying to figure out what makes us tick, Brown has some definite ideas based on her years as a behavioral researcher. Don’t be put off when I tell you her newest TED entry is entitled ‘Listening to shame.’ Cindy and I watched it three times over the weekend, and my guess is we’re not done with it yet. Great stuff for those of us trying to make sense of our lives....
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And then, of course, it’s really spring! Noah and I had a great extended look at a pileated woodpecker on our walk at Englewood Reserve on Friday. Then yesterday I put up the canopy over the back patio for the another season of porch sitting and Nature watching. I sat out there for a couple hours last evening just to get back in touch with the world of Nature I’ve largely seen only from inside windows since November. Oh, so grateful!
I’m telling you, the invitation is open: come on over for a back porch sit and conversation. Love to have you! ;-)
Today’s Elder Idea: When advised it was time to leave her beloved summer camp on Hog Island behind because of her advanced age, Millicent Bingham wrote, ‘For me it feels more like pulling me up by the tap root, which goes down to the very source of life itself. This is how I feel about the island...’
in a letter to Chris Speh’s Aunt Gertrude Sorel
21 May 1962
There are others who feel that way, too, Mrs. B....
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