May Novel Update
A glimpse into the progress of my literary adventure
Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden.—Voltaire
Hello friends!
It’s the last day of May and time for another update on my writing progress. Before I get to that, I’d like to tell you a little about what I’ve been reading and thinking.
As the warmth of spring enveloped the air, I found myself drawn to the garden. It was a familiar routine, something I never missed doing each year. This year was different. Because of unexpected events, I began my gardening later than I had hoped.
As I dug into the earth with my garden trowel, I recalled the words of Oliver Sacks, a brilliant mind who had eloquently written about the significance of gardens in our lives. In his short essay titled “Why We Need Gardens,” found in Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales, he explored the profound impact that these green spaces have on our well-being.
“Within the garden, time becomes suspended,” Sacks had written. “The rhythm of nature’s cycles, the growth and decay, the seasons shifting seamlessly, all create a sense of timelessness. In this sanctuary, we are reminded of the beauty and fragility of life.”
Each stroke of my garden trowel deepened my connection to Sacks’ words. Through gardening, I witness the rhythmic cycles of life and the constant regeneration of nature. Despite starting late, I knew the garden would provide its gifts, and unfold its wonders in due time.
Sacks had mused about the therapeutic nature of gardens, noting how they can heal both body and soul. “The act of tending to plants, nurturing their growth, is a form of meditation,” he had remarked. “It brings us back to the present moment, grounding us in the here and now.”
As I planted seeds and tended to the soil, I could feel the weight of the world lifting from my shoulders. Worries and anxieties vanished, replaced by calm and purpose. In the garden, I found solace, a respite from the chaos of everyday life.
Sacks delved into the sensory experiences of gardens in his essay. The vibrant colors, fragrant blooms, and rustling leaves formed a sensory symphony. The beauty of the garden engulfed me, with Sacks’ words resonating in my thoughts.
“Gardens awaken our senses,” he had written. “They ignite our imagination and inspire creativity. They invite us to explore, to discover the wonders that lie within their boundaries.”
I wandered through the garden, enchanted by the fragile flowers, intricate fern patterns, and elegant cabbage white butterflies as they flitted among the cat mint, purple salvia, and blue lupines. Each passing moment reminded me of the extraordinary world beyond my front door.
As the sun set, casting a warm glow over the garden, I couldn’t help but feel grateful for this late start. The delay had allowed me to appreciate the beauty and significance of the garden. It reminded me that gardening takes patience, resilience, and the embracing of life’s unexpected twists and turns.
With renewed enthusiasm, I continue gardening, knowing that the seeds I plant will grow and flourish in their own time. And as I tend to my garden, I carry with me the wisdom of Oliver Sacks, the reminder that in the embrace of nature, we can find comfort, healing, and a profound sense of connection to the world.
In his words:
As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process; as a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible. All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit. The importance of these physiological states on individual and community health is fundamental and wide-ranging. In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.
[…]
Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us. Biophilia, the love of nature and living things, is an essential part of the human condition. Hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage, and tend nature, is also deeply instilled in us. The role that nature plays in health and healing becomes even more critical for people working long days in windowless offices, for those living in city neighborhoods without access to green spaces, for children in city schools, or for those in institutional settings such as nursing homes. The effects of nature’s qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological. I have no doubt that they reflect deep changes in the brain’s physiology, and perhaps even its structure.
Novel
My novel is coming along. I’m still on my second draft, and among other things, I’m considering setting it in the future.
Yeah, yeah. I know I should have addressed that sooner. I’m not thinking of Star Trek’s future, but more like forward in time by 50 years. Not a great leap.
Also, I want one of the main characters to be my murder victim, not just “a victim.”
I will admit here that I am anxious about the entire thing. Sometimes, thinking about it gives me a weird feeling in my stomach. See, anxious.
It’s a good thing I can distract myself with my:
Poetry Collection
I’ve titled my collection of poems, The Edges, because of my love of transitional spaces. I mean those borders, thresholds, doorways, portals, edges that offer a transition from one state to another. In this poetry collection, I will sometimes approach a transitional space, sometimes dwell in it, and other times, cross to other worlds beyond this one.
Currently, I have the poems collected in six sections.
Nature and the Cosmos
Love and War
Seasons and Liminal Spaces
Wounds and Contemplations
Time and Memories
Observations and World Views
The collection contains some poems I've never published. Some of these new poems might be seen as political and will be included in the Observations and World Views section. As expected, I have most poems in the Nature and the Cosmos section.
Short Story Collection
I am still organizing and writing a collection of short stories. I'll have to blow off the dust bunnies that have collected and overhaul entire story lines on some of these. This collection won’t be ready for at least another year.
Thanks very much for reading, subscribing, and sharing the stories, poetry, and essays in this space. If you like a story, poem, or essay, please click on the heart. Also if you are so moved, please leave a comment.
Wow, you've got a lot on your plate! Good thing you have gardening to ground you. Our home has a large yard that we are cultivating mostly with rare native plants found deep in the nearby mountains. We're doing this for a lot of good reasons, and one of them is that our yard will become a seed depository that will be easier to reach than a miles-long hike up a mountain. As I've gotten older, I've discovered that it's okay to do things in bits and pieces -- pull some weeds here, plant a bush there -- rather than spending all day and into the evening trying to do it all at once. I'm not saying you're doing that. This is just my own observation.