what to do when you're not feeling it? collage your refrigerator of course!

+ butterflies > me, a delightful squashy soup, and an advent calendar of writing prompts

Hi-Hi! I’m Natalie, from read.write.eat. I'm so delighted you’re here. Every week I chat about books, food, and writing. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, let’s make it a regular thing!

hey-ho,

Before we get to the refrigerator collage…

Stanley and I traipsed through the eucalyptus grove in Lighthouse Field, hoping to spot the monarchs who winter in Santa Cruz. As a child I was brought on school field trips to run around in the duff beneath the trees, chasing butterflies. Then I always delighted in visiting with my children. There’s wonder in watching the flicker of bright and crushable wings that carry the butterflies thousands of miles on their migration. Wonder in spotting the clusters hanging like orange grapes from dusty green branches. Butterfly numbers have dwindled, but in the weak winter light, they were fluttering. (I put a short video at the close of the newsletter.)

Photo by Dennis Yu on Unsplash

Maybe I was brooding about the world…humans in opposition to nature, but I landed on a fleeting thought, what makes me more important than a butterfly? A quick google search tells me that butterflies have been around for 100 million years and we modern humans have been here for only 250,000. Also, they started as moths and evolved as they began to drink nectar during the day. Imagine, becoming so beautiful from drinking something sweet. We have so much to learn! Nothing makes me better than a butterfly. In fact, it might be quite nice.

…

Fast forward to the Marilynne Robinson lecture I attended. I won’t lie, a lot of what she said swam around in my brain without gaining purchase. But. She talked about the dire problem of humans not having enough respect for themselves. My first thought was yes, that’s right. A dearth of self-love, a fragile core, makes a person behave badly. It’s easier to abuse ourselves and others if we don’t feel we have value. (That bromide: hurt people hurt people.) And then I thought, wait a minute. Maybe the problem with humans is we have an over abundance of self-worth. Why do we think we are we better than butterflies? Why do we get to rampage through the environment as if our needs are most important.

And then I pretzeled myself back around and thought, maybe what we have to respect and revere and fear is our capacity to cause damage. We’re bad animals! Maybe that’s the point Marilyn Robinson was coming around to. I mean, when we use a table saw (such a useful tool) we have to respect its capacity to cut off our thumbs! Yes, we have amazing minds, able to contemplate and solve, able to empathize and love, but also able to selfishly destroy. Let’s have some respect and awe and reserve. Let’s find a way to survive ourselves.

Robinson is a very religious woman. She claims to practice a ‘religion of the mind.’ And, her religion (Calvinism) is also god centered. (Though she did say “God is a thug!” which delighted me. She also said she cannot reconcile the idea of a benevolent god with the atrocities of the world.) She reminded the audience of the quote from Jesus:

“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”

“Yes!” she said. We should repeat that as a mantra multiple times a day. We know not what we do as we buy fast fashion, take away women’s autonomy over our own bodies, threaten to tear humans from their established lives and send them back over borders, drink from plastic straws… Slow down and ponder was her message. Her lecture was not a joy bomb!! It was a thought bomb. It was a reminder to be humble and to act and to not forget that everyday we are surrounded by kindness. Consider this quote from a profile in the NYTs:

I worry about the country at the same time that I’m aware, day to day, of how much I have benefited from kindness and honesty and consideration. You so rarely have a really bad experience, and you hope other people have a good experience of you, but some idea has swept the country that to say that people are good is naïve. It’s as if we’re all supposed to be cynical, even though, as you say, many of us have excellent grounds not to be cynical at all. It’s a mannerism; it’s a pose. It’s perhaps more characteristic of privileged people than of people who really might wonder about justice and mercy. It’s terrible to say that a great civilization could collapse from the force of a fad, but sometimes I feel as if that’s what’s happening.

Hello, butterflies. Hello, friends. I appreciate you.

…

Down below I have more about that beautiful refrigerator collage, a confession, and an advent calendar of writing prompts. I have a wonderful soup recipe with an amazing fresh twist, and a terrific story by Joy Williams. Can’t wait for you to read, write, eat, and then let me know what you think!

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