One Story Home
Up in the second floor bathroom there’s a box that’s not a box. It’s walled off behind the yellowed stacks of my grandfather’s old National Geographic magazines at the top of the stairs, but that doesn’t change what it is. Or what it isn’t.
Let me start over.
The stairs are out of bounds. They were out of bounds when I was a kid playing tag with the Bishop brothers after bible school. They were out of bounds when I nearly got myself killed driving home drunk after Sarah Blahnik broke up with me and I punched out the window of my dorm room in Biddle Hall. They’re out of bounds now that my parents are ten years dead and Sarah and I have been divorced long enough to be friends again.
I didn’t invent the stairs rule. It must have been my parents, but I honestly couldn’t tell you when it started. We just always lived in a house that looked like a two-story from the street, but it was one-story once you were inside. I still live in that house.
[Finish reading on my Substack - Here]
Sunday Seeds #10
Wonder:
Recently, I needed a trip to the ER (don’t worry, I’m fine). It is not surprising that we age. It is not surprising that we get sick, that we are injured. But in the aftermath of my health scare, I do feel surprised by my own healing. The complexity of the healing process and the fact that it doesn’t involve any active knowhow from me has been a source of wonder this week. This has been a week of observing my own healing and feeling like a gardener of self; I can facilitate some of the processes of life, but I certainly don’t control them. It’s another stark reminder that, mind and body, with or without active awareness, I am a part of nature.
Whimsy:
I've long dreamed of using magic to move objects with my mind. The older I get, the more I know my dream is fulfilled each time I pick up my cup. What is a body? A spell billions of years in the making. Soil and storms, the fruit of forests and phytoplankton. How well familiarity masks our magic.
Writing Prompt:
Celebrate some aspect of your body as a part of nature. Try to focus on something that you don’t actively control, something that decenters your conscious mind and focuses on the larger community of you. Who are you as a landscape? Who are you from the perspective of your gut bacteria or the microbiome of your skin? What does it mean to be an ecosystem pondering itself?
Sunday Seeds #9
Hermit crab pats you on the shoulder
"See, friend? You didn't need an exoskeleton after all. The skeleton was INSIDE you all along."
Music swells
Wonder
I’ve been learning about US national parks this week, reading Grandma Joy and Me: A Journey of Healing, One National Park at a Time. I’m having a conversation with the author, Brad Ryan, on Tuesday. I had no idea there were 63 national parks, nor did I realize the diversity of the parks. Grandma Joy and Me was a great book (that does not shy away from hard conversations around intergenerational trauma and estrangement). The book reminded me of the time I decided to drive to Yellowstone from Ohio and I just left a note on my parents’ kitchen counter and got on the road with a few friends. We had a grizzly scare. We got caught in a bison traffic jam. But of all my Yellowstone memories, I most remember the night sky and the dizzy enchantment of staring up at it until my neck ached. Looking at the stars in Yellowstone felt like seeing them for the first time. Now when I look up at the overcast sky of my home state, dulled with light pollution, I know it is keeping secrets.
Whimsy
If I spot a knothole, I stop to see what’s inside. I’ve seen dry, homey spaces with sawdust and a trace of gray fur. I’ve found tiny twilight ponds inside of trees. I’ve seen a single mushroom growing inside a knothole. I’ve found notes and geocaching logs. The point is, you never know unless you stop to look.
Writing Prompt
Make a list of tiny, detailed descriptions of natural objects. Make a list of big, abstract questions that haunt or enchant you. Now, choose at least two elements from each list and braid them into a single strand of prose or poetry. Practice moving from big to small, from abstract to concrete. How can these things be related? How can they be in conversation with one another? You’ll notice this practice in poems like Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day.”
Imagine reading a book filled to the brim with your own soul. That's the experience I had with Strange Animals. #bookreview #strangeanimals #jarodkanderson
Hey WV folks, have I mentioned that I'll soon be in your state chatting with Justin McElroy about my novel?
Details here.
Central Ohio folks: I’m participating in a mentorship program for emerging Ohio fiction writers. The application opens today! More info here: https://www.quotidianwriter.com/writers-rising
Sunday Seeds #8
Wonder
I have vultures on the brain. I taught a writing workshop yesterday and one of the attendees told me he first discovered my work though my poem “Clergy,” which is about turkey vultures. I’ll include the poem in the next section. Beyond being smart and social (I’ve met a few and this reputation proved true), they serve their ecosystem communities in numerous ways. I think their role as “purifiers” is particularly poetic. Vultures have specialized immunity to diseases lurking in carrion, so their simple act of feeding removes dangerous pathogens from the environment.
Whimsy
Thinking about words and vultures side-by-side, I’m reminded of how much I love the scientific name for turkey vultures. It’s Cathartes aura, which means “purifying breeze.” This is a lovely bit of found whimsy and I would like to hunt for more examples of poetic scientific names. If you know any, please share!
As promised, here’s the poem I mentioned above.
Clergy
Vultures are holy creatures. Tending the dead. Bowing low. Bared head. Whispers to cold flesh, “Your old name is not your king. I rename you ‘Everything.’”
Writing Prompt
Imagine a human filling in for the role of a plant or animal. What would you call that person’s job? How much work and technology would be needed to approximate the ecological benefits of your chosen organism? Would the human’s attempt to fill that role be possible or efficient?
[Here’s an old pic of an important sign Leslie and I discovered on a road trip to Florida]
Sunday Seeds #7
We are not our possessions, but we are our gardens. Within and without, our story is told through what we nurture.
Wonder
I’ve long wanted to keep an ant farm. Specifically, with a local species that I can observe and likely release in time. I’ve thought this for years, but I’ve never wanted to capture a wild colony (because of the harm I would cause) and I’ve never found a solo queen after her mating flight. This year, I found a carpenter ant queen just sitting on my bathroom rug. I said, “oh, hello, I was hoping to meet you.” She has since started her colony of sister-workers and is doing very well. Ants are fascinating and I find that I enjoy watching them do just about anything. I once heard a scientist describe individual ants as akin to cells in the body of the colony. I am enchanted by watching the endless, subtle business of a body so unlike mine, and yet unmistakably thriving here in our shared world.
Whimsy
Dragonflies have been around for about 300 million years. They have nearly 360 degrees of vision. And the one in this picture (below) was patient enough for me to get super-close with my phone and clip-on macro lens. I always feel silly in the best sort of way when I take that lens with me on a nature walk. Every time I do, I spend A LOT of time trying to be very still and inconspicuous, hoping to get close to bugs. I suppose that must be what a praying mantis feels like every day.
Writing Prompt
Try taking a very non-poetic form and making it poetic. Can a shopping list be poetic? What about instructions for a simple task or directions to a location? Think of how a list can become a narrative or how directions can tell you the character of the poem’s speaker by what they emphasize (or don’t).