Face Value

“I believe everything has a soul.” — Mary Oliver, Upstream

“… is beauty itself an intricately fashioned lure, the cruelest hoax of all?” — Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“One time, springing to my feet, I said, ‘This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!’” — John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

There can be an intense want to make the world around seem bigger than itself. It isn’t that the birds aren’t beautiful in the way they gather and fly in formation, up and over the mountain’s crest. The way that the tree stands firm no matter how hard the winds blow, no matter how much the squirrel plays on its rough skin. What one is wont to do is to make the tree explode and the birds talk. It is for that reason that sometimes I have to venture back into the real world and try my best to write it as I see it. Because the world is as beautiful as a fantasy novel. As breathless as a sci-fi thriller. Yet it is hard to distill that into anything worth reading, sometimes. Unless you have that intrinsic eye like that of the nature writers.

Nature writers like John Muir, Anne Dillard, and Mary Oliver are the ones I truly look up to. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was a book that blew things wide open for me. The way that Dillard could sit by the waterside and watch nature as if it was the most spectacular play that she had ever seen. Of course the “Father of National Parks”, John Muir, has the same effect. His wonder was like a child’s when traversing Yosemite and the Sierras, when taking a thousand mile walk of the gulf. I think of Muir looking at every squirrel and talking to them, and them talking back in such a quiet chitter that he has to ask “what?” a dozen times. I think of Dillard dipping her feet into the water and it turning the color of burgundy wine. None of this happens, so I stop myself from pretending.

Pretend. A state of being that seems to flitter away at some point in one’s life. Those that harness it become artists, writers, creative types. To some pretend is a state that is just slightly removed from reality but enough to feel isolated. Calm. Safe. Solitary. There is a way to have both, it seems. To live in some thin veil of fantasy that drapes over the tangible. It is there that one can truly take their brush and their pen. I am sure this is what Oliver saw, too, when she gleaned her poetry from the natural world. These nature writers who took the world at face value but also saw the beauty bubbling underneath in shades unseen by the lazy eye. 

It is true that in your craft you must open up your mind and let your surroundings inspire you. The cat lying sleepily at your feet may not be doing much—like my own Olive, as I watch her pet the same square of carpet over and over. The music more like a metronome as you type word after word. You want to make the picture frames detach from the wall and revolve around your head. You want Olive to grow human size, wink, and then shrink to normal. But Muir didn’t need to make El Capitan shine like a diamond to make it beautiful. Especially when the sunset already turned it into a golden spectacular. 

Dipping back and forth between writing fiction and non-fiction can be challenging. You feel the want to write purple prose until it rots your teeth from its sweetness. You hold a red pen and refuse to cross out that sentence that you would vote is the sentence to end all sentences. But sometimes the best sentence is one with five of the best words that you could come up with. 

These are the things I tell myself. I am thick into revising my novel and writing these essay-type blogs. I am doing my best to extend the boundaries of my writing and seeing what works. And, most importantly, what doesn’t. My suggestion? Look to the nature writers to see how they view the world with a microscope and a fine-toothed comb. If anything, they are most worthy inspirations for your fiction.