vultures
Hey All,
A few things.
1) a few months ago i wrote in the reading club about how I'm really enjoying listening to audio books I get from the library when I walk the dogs, or especially when I drive, say, to get the meat. In my writing classes I often talk about what I call the "garage test" that is the baseline for any decent writing, which is, "If I'm listening to a book when I'm driving around on errands, when I get home, will I sit in the car for another minute or two because I want to hear what happens next." That's the baseline of what I want as a writer. I remember decades ago reading an interview with crime writer Ann Rule who said her favorite fan letters were ones where the letter writers said, "You are wrecking my sleep. I stayed up all night telling myself, 'I'm going to read one more chapter.'"
But I also talked about the downside of less paying attention to my surroundings--it's crazy for me to be listening to a book as I walk through this beautiful forest--and the downside also of less rumination time. And this afternoon was a great example of the latter. I went out to walk the dogs. It was windy, and the wind made it too noisy to hear the book, plus wind in trees is one of my favorite sounds in the world. So the book was off when I was walking the dogs, and listening to the wind, and then also looking up to see the vultures. Had I been listening to the book, I probably would have wondered, as I often do, about how the vultures soar in circles in a wind, but it would have stopped there as my attention went back to the book. But because the book was off, i was able to fall into the space where it opened up to the other questions of how others move, and the book idea developed. Constant attention to these other stimuli, whether they are books I'm listening to or tv shows I'm watching or anything else can always act as distractions. I'm not saying that's always bad. It's just most of us don't get those long uninterrupted times for rumination that I think are so necessary to developing any thought or creative endeavor, or those long uninterrupted times for just readiness for when the muse speaks.
a couple of my favorite quotes about this are
this by Boris Pasternak, from Dr Zhivago
The preliminary part of his work was being done outside his consciousness, during the drowsiness that filled him and veiled his surroundings and his thoughts. The diffuse mistiness in which everything was enveloped marked the stage preceding the distinctness of the final embodiment. Like the confusion of a first draft, the wearisome inactivity of the day was a necessary preparation for the night.
p. 366
this from the journal of creative behavior
When Michelangelo did the Sistine Chapel he painted both the major and minor prophets. They can be told apart because, though there are cherubim at the ears of all, only the major prophets are listening. Here, exactly stated, is the difference between genius and talent.
oh, and this one by Rudyard Kipling, from his Working Tools
When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey.
And then this one, by Joseph Campbell
There is an important Chinese term, wu-wei, 'not doing,' the meaning of which is not 'doing nothing' but 'not forcing.'
Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By
p. 121, Bantam Books, 1972
Anyway, had I been listening to Colin Dexter's Last Bus to Woodstock, i wouldn't have come up with that idea for a book.
2) I forgot to mention that the novel about Cassie relocating beavers I'll probably do with Jakob Shockey, and Lierre if she's interested.
3) I slightly changed the topic of one of the books (the one about bears) from the last note and then sent it out to a larger audience, to advertise the reading club, saying this is the sort of note you get if you subscribe to it, but I screwed up and left off that this is the sort of note you get three or four times a week if you are a paid subscriber. Free subscribers get updates and then one of these more juicy ones every week or two. A whole bunch of people signed up for the free updates, which is great, but I feel like a jerk for having forgotten to add the word paid. i don't want anybody to feel deceived. But then again, the free part is free so any juicy notes is better than none.
4) Someone wrote me immediately after I sent the note, to send me an article about vultures, having to do with how they find thermals. It's really interesting stuff
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a24843048/vultures-social-networks-thermal/
Vultures Helping Vultures: The Surprising Way Scavenger Birds Share the Secrets of Flight
popularmechanics.com
She also sent a note about the vulture cataclysm in India. It's been ongoing for decades, and is one of the worst things in the world.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/09/14/vultures-human-health-economic-benefits/
Of course the f'ing human supremacists at the washington post put it in terms of humans and the economy, as opposed to life, but if you skip the article and just do research on the cataclysm, it's horrendous.
5) Someone else wrote me to encourage me to keep the unhelpful family members in the book,
One recognition I have about myself and my friends taking care of their dying loved-ones is that unhelpful family members plays a BIG role - I think you could easily dedicate an entire chapter to the wranglings you had trying to figure things out for you mom in the face of unhelpful family. People often think that in the face of dying the best of everyone shows up - and that is simply and evidently not true. I think it would be a disservice NOT to include something of it in the book
That was really helpful, and maybe this was not just my friend writing this, but the muse finally giving me the answer of whether or not to keep it. It was really encouraging to hear.
6) This morning a big tree fell somewhere in the forest. I could hear its cracking all the way down. It was interesting, in that it wasn't windy at the time, and it's not been rainy. they fall over a lot more when it's windy, for obvious reasons, and also when it's really wet. The latter is because they soak up a lot of water and become heavier, and if they are dead the weakened wood may not be able to support it; and because the ground might be soggy, and the mud doesn't hold the rotted roots as well. i hear about two or three trees per year fall (naturally: not from some asshole neighbor cutting them). if i were outside more I would obviously hear more. this is a thick forest, and there's nothing wrong with trees dying or falling.
7) Something I used to worry about when I first moved here is that except in meadows, I see almost no baby trees growing up. I worried about that for a few years until I bothered to do the math. I can't remember the numbers I used when I did the calculations, so I'll just make them up again. there are 43,560 sq ft/acre. with trees this big around I'd say you should have let's say one tree every 400 square feet (that's only 20 x 20, and a big redwood can eventually get 20 feet diameter, so i should probably say one tree every 1600 square feet. Sitka spruces can get 3/4 that big but more often they can get 5 to 8 feet across. Doug firs can get 15 feet across. Western red cedars are four to 8 feet across, but the base buttresses can be 15 to 20 ft. In any case, 43,560/400 = about 110 trees per acre. Let's call it 100. and if these trees live to be 1000 years old, on average (barring blowdowns, etc) the forest would only need one replacement per ten years (which I'm sure mainly come after blowdowns, etc). Then I stopped worrying.
It's late, and I need to sleep.
Thank you,
Derrick