Volume 4, No. 28: A Little Collection of Nourishment

friends, gardens, tea, herbs, poetry

Greetings, book and treat people. A lot of very bad things are happening all over the world. Things are very bad for very many people and maybe you, too, are finding it all very hard to hold. Every day I run out of words again.

A thing happened on the bookish internet last week. The New York Times published A List. I had a whole newsletter planned about it, because while I do not care about the New York Times and their unserious list of the Best Books of the 21st Century, I do love books and bookish people and talking about books and let me tell you: I had some of the best conversations of my bookish life last week.

So I do have some things to say about bests and lists and expansiveness and binaries. I’ve also spent the last week collaborating with my friends Surabhi and Amber on a project that is all joy: Bookstagram’s Best Books of the 21st Century (U.S.). Over 300 bookstagrammers responded to our survey by submitting their ballots of ten books (the same way the NYT did it, although their methodology is a lot murkier). We’ve been nerding out on the data for days, and we’re releasing the list in batches on Instagram. You can check it out here.

So I was going to write about all of that. And then my computer crashed. So I am behind on paid work. And it is hot. So my brain is fuzzy and my body is unhappy. And I am so angry and heartbroken and tried and and afraid about the world. And this is not a newsletter about despair. It’s just: I can’t write the essay I was going to write. I can’t write much of anything. Or, more honestly: everything I want to write takes all of me—brain and heart and fingers—and I do not have all of me to give.

So today’s newsletter is a break. A little space of respite. It’s free for everyone because it doesn’t feel like it belongs behind a paywall. Thanks, as always, to everyone who’s subscribed. Here’s the link to do that, and the link to pledge. And here’s where you can read about why I’m asking for money. If I don’t meet my financial goal by the end of July (wow! that’s soon!) I’ll stop writing Books & Bakes.

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This is a small collection of things that have nourished me over the last few weeks, and one thing I’m looking forward to in August. These are not big things (except they are). These things are not going to fix the very many bad problems that are so deep and so endless. They are not even going to fix the very many bad things in my own little life (which is also full of luck and sweetness and abundance). These things are not magic. They are nourishment.

Herbal Listening School

Last Sunday I spent several hours at Foxtrot Farm, a gorgeous hilltop farm in Ashfield, for Herbal Listening School. We shared a delicious potluck lunch, met the herb of the day, blue vervain, learned about it from the amazing herbalists of MIXED GREENS, and then spread out across the woods and fields to be in creative relationship with this airy purple beauty of a plant. I spent most of that time chewing on the bitter purple buds and writing a poem.

I signed up for this four-week immersion on a whim, craving time in community, in nature, with plants. I was grumpy and hot when I arrived, but it was exactly what I needed. I sat in the shade with my feet in a ice-water bath scented with dried blue vervain. There were so many butterflies. It was a joy to reflect with other plant-lovers about what it means to make art in relationship with the natural world. I left feeling refreshed and slow and full of wonder.

If you’re interested in blue vervain, here is a monograph about it that I enjoyed reading, shared by the wonderful folks at MIXED GREENS.

My Bestie’s Garden

This is not a picture of my best friend’s incredible vegetable garden. It’s one of the many patches of flowers around her beautiful homestead. I told her that blue vervain was the plant we’d be studying in herb school, so she pointed some out to me in her garden.

Over the past few weeks, this garden (and, of course, my dear friend) has fed me with kale, salad greens, herbs, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. Plus some other things I’m probably forgetting. Every time I go to her house, I leave with vegetables. This small act of love and care feels as big as the sky.

Teatime

For many months now, I’ve been having (mostly) weekly coworking dates with another dear friend of mine. He brings lunch to my house, a truly precious gift. I live alone, and I often struggle to feed myself. I love cooking, but cooking is not just cooking. I have to decide what to make (often emotionally exhausting). Then I have to collect the ingredients from my house or the store. I have to do the prep and the cooking and the cleanup and the putting away of leftovers. Doing one of those things every day, no problem. Doing all of those things every day, let alone multiple times a day, impossible.

So Will brings lunch and then we work for a while and then we have teatime. Will usually sets out the tea on my bamboo tea tray, on a chair pulled over from the dining table, which we situate between the two armchairs in my living room. Sometimes he brings a treat and sometimes I make a treat. We sip and chat and keep working. We pour a bit of tea over my little tea dragon friend, and watch him blow bubbles. It’s a moment I cherish.

Bonus: The Sealey Challenge

I haven’t been reading a lot. I’m doing a slow reread of Martyr!, one chapter a day, and that’s wonderful. I’m listening to audiobooks, and that’s wonderful. I’m reading my daily picture book, and that’s wonderful. But I’ve read less in July so far than any other month this year, probably any other month in the last three years. It’s fine. This happens. I’m not twisted up about it.

However, August is coming, and August, for me, means one thing: the Sealey Challenge! The Sealey Challenge is magical. I mean this literally. No matter what kind of reading mood I’m in at the end of July, on August 1, I’m ready to read a book of poetry a day. I can’t explain it. All I know is that I love it, it’s the thing that gets me through August, it feeds me and feeds me, it turns the hot and muggy mornings sacred. It’s my favorite holiday, or whatever.

I have my stack mostly planned out already. I’m especially looking forward to two new books by two favorite poets: Bluff by Danez Smith and Deed by torrin a. greathouse.

Thanks for being here, bookish friends. I’d love to hear about what’s been nourishing you these past few weeks in the comments.