About
One day I looked down at my feet and realized that my shoes were falling apart.
There is nothing I like better than walking the terrain of our planet. As long as the ground and I are in contact, it’s a good day. Some days I sashay among the stones and dead wood with the grace of a dancer. Other times I resemble a through-hiker on the Appalachian Trail: I am trudging. And oh yes, sauntering is very fine, too. Most of this walking takes place right around my home: the Carolina Piedmont, where I have lived for more than thirty years. Once in a while I travel to other places and walk there too. My education led me to work as a botanist/ecologist, so walking and noticing were valuable skills; though I am certain that those skills were first cultivated in my childhood. Work life identities have included rare plant and natural communities inventory specialist; botanist/data manager for a state natural heritage program; technical editor, copy editor, and managing editor for a variety of clients and publications; and, most recently, publications and publicity coordinator at the North Carolina Botanical Garden. Now “semi-retired,” I offer freelance editing and writing services when asked. I’ve run through several pairs of shoes, then (“hats,” if you prefer that metaphor). At this life juncture, I have somehow provoked myself to get serious about a personal writing practice. Annie Dillard was one inspiration: “There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin.” (Annie Dillard, The Writing Life, 1989) So I begin with the awareness that I wear my walking shoes a long time. They grow old, cracked, worn. They smell bad because they have gotten wet and dirty time and again. But this is what we do, right? We keep wearing our shoes, keep tromping and looking—keep trying to understand. Sometimes we are on old ground, sometimes new. And what about when the old becomes new because we see, hear, smell, or simply sense something new in an old, familiar landscape—known to be true by that prickly rise of hair on the back of the neck? This is, generally, where I am headed. |
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