We're going upstream
Upstream by Mary Oliver, Letters to August video, a painting by Lilly Martin Spencer, and a cozy book rec.
Recently, I re-read Upstream by Mary Oliver. It’s very rare that I re-read books and I can count on one hand the books I have re-read (Upstream, Braiding Sweetgrass, Dandelion Wine, Letters to a Young Poet, The Alchemist).
Upstream is Mary Oliver’s book of short essays on various topics, mostly the natural world, as are her poems. She does have a section (three) about other writers (Poe, Emerson, Whitman, and Wordsworth) that I admittedly am not sure why they’re in this collection but they’re also lovely nonetheless.
I really like the essay on her time spent caring for a spider in a house she was visiting. It lived on the stairs and she watched and cared for it, even through the birth of more spiders.
You can really be present and “notice” wherever you are and with whatever you’re doing. I think Mary Oliver is really good at driving that point home.
Overall it’s an endearing essay collection that dives deeper into her love of nature that a lot of her poetry doesn’t convey.
While there are many gems in the book, here are a few-
What I highlighted:
“I read my books with diligence, and mounting skill, and gathering certainty. I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.”
“I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.”
On life:
“And there is the thing that one does, the needle one plies, the work, and within that work a chance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and to place them slowly and with meticulous effort into some shapely heat-retaining form, even as gods, or nature, or the soundless wheels of time have made forms all across the soft, curved universe— that is to say, having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life.”
“Man finds he has two halves to his existence— leisure and occupation— and from these separate considerations he now looks upon the world. In leisure he remembers radiance; in labor he looks for results.”
On creativity:
“Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions. It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to, but does not necessarily have at once. Privacy, then. A place apart— to pace, to chew pencils, to scribble and erase and scribble again.”
“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
“In creative work— creative work of all kinds— those who are the world’s working artists are not trying to help the world go around, but forward.”
Have you read Upstream or Mary Oliver’s poetry?
Letter to August - on expression
A Painting
When I was perusing my favorite art app I came across this painting which is very “August” in my world. I’ve been looking forward to the opening of apple picking season (and pears!) and this painting just re-sparked that flame.
Lilly Martin Spencer was one of the most popular and widely reproduced American female painters in the mid 19th century. She mostly painted women and children in domestic settings but she also liked to create still life paintings with American themes.
I love how it looks like the apples may have been from a neighboring tree that’s stretched over her stone wall. The weight of the apples are causing the branch to nearly sever toward the top.
Instead of snapping it off and taking the apples, Spencer sets up her canvas an immortalizes the simple fruit in this painting, and like Oliver, realizes the importance of seeing art and beauty in everyday things.
Reading
I’m long overdue for a “what I’ve been reading” post. I’m currently at 54 books of my 75 book goal this year and I have a couple more nearly completed.
I did just finish Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum and it was so cute and cozy. It’s about a young woman named Yeongju who is burned out on life and decides to open a bookshop in Seoul. The book introduces you to the bookshop regulars and their relationships with each other and the shop.
It gave me the same vibes as the cozy coffee shop in Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree minus the fantasy aspect. Definitely recommend both books to read during this liminal time between summer and autumn, perhaps on a rainy day with a blanket.
Next week I’ll be sharing a lot more of what I’ve been reading. Stay tuned :)
x,
Courtney