I know that L.M. Montgomery quote has been overused, but I really do love Octobers. I loved them in Boston, with mist coming off the Charles while crew teams rowed in the early morning light. I loved them in New Mexico, with hot air balloons in the sky and the smell of roasting green chile in the air. And I love them here in Vermont, with its abundance of foliage and farm stands and days that start with foggy mornings and end with soft sunsets.
This time of year always makes me a little sad, too. Both the pollinator garden and the vegetable garden have had their final burst of activity and are waning. Things are drying up, wilting, rotting on the vine because I haven’t had time to get to them. My son and I spent last weekend cutting and then ripping out the last of the zinnias. It always makes me a little bit sad, to say goodbye to the last of my favorite flowers. But we ripped them out to plant rows of garlic. Those little white cloves will sit silently in the dirt all winter, and then there will be spring, and shoots, then scapes, and by the time the heat of summer rolls around and the basil is ready, lots and lots of pesto.
I guess what I’m saying is that fall is a burst of activity, but also rest, and the potential for renewal. It means waiting. Waiting for the first frost. Waiting for the first snow. Watching the sky for the Canada geese and the snow geese, who are on the move and waiting for their seasons, too.
Upcoming Events
This Saturday, October 21st, I’ll be at the South Burlington Public Library for a reading of Make Way, along with a fun duck-related craft and some coloring. There’s an 80% chance of rain in the forecast, so come join us for stories and fun! Books will also be available for purchase, courtesy of The Flying Pig Bookstore.
Random Good Things
Speaking of Make Way for Ducklings, Betsy Bird created this incredible list of all of the public sculpture inspired by children’s literature in the United States. To date, I’ve only visited Nancy Schön’s renditions of Blueberries for Sal and the ducklings, but I’d love to add more to my list! Are there any near you?
Someone gave me Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris when I was in high school, and I remember feeling like it was a precious gift, a gift that meant someone was taking my own teenage poetry seriously. With Glück’s passing this week, I listened to this interview— as someone who is (still) feeling very stuck right now, I love how honestly Glück describes the torment of writer’s block after the success of her first book: “My writing life, at that point, was spent sitting in front a piece of white paper at a typewriter completely paralyzed . . . Everything was dead. I had exhausted a mode of writing in my first book, I had no new sound to make. You have to hear first a message from the ear, a kind of sound, a phrase. I had nothing to go on. And I kept on doing less and less because I thought I wasn’t sacrificing enough, I wasn’t renouncing enough, and finally it occured to me that I wasn’t going to be an artist.” Glück did go on, to win the National Book Award and the Nobel in Prize in Literature (among many other honors), and it’s a wonderful reminder that the horrible and terrifying feeling of being blocked is (or can be) only temporary, even when it feels like it’s forever.
Speaking (again!) of writer’s block, I encountered the Marge Piercy poem “For the Young Who Want To” through both
and and oh, did it come along when I needed it. I won’t share the final lines here because they’re better if you’ve read the whole poem, but I love them.Also this poem by Jane Kenyon, with thanks to
.And maybe you remember when I wrote about stuckness the last time, in In Waves? Well, right after I wrote that post the battery on our lawnmower died. I’ll give you one guess as to what the guy who helped me at AutoZone had tattooed on his forearm. And then right after that, I scrolled upon this wonderful linocut by Balint Zsako for the new picture book Bunny and Tree. Which I haven’t read yet, but I will, because the universe keeps showing up with this image.
We went apple picking a few weeks ago, and one new thing I made was this apple cake, a New York Times recipe from 1973. It’s all fall goodness and here’s a gift link to the recipe for you.
Books I Read and Loved Recently (for Adults)
I Have Some Questions for You, by Rebecca Makkai
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
Books I Read and Loved Recently (Picture Books)
A Few Beautiful Minutes, by Kate Allen Fox and Khoa Le
My Baba’s Garden, by Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith
Just One Little Light, by Kat Yeh and Isabelle Arsenault
*Please note that all books mentioned above contain affiliate links to Bookshop.org, a site that helps support local independent bookstores.