Wildlife. Real. Magical. Maybe …. Both

In my “Mystery In Maine” series, I had my narrator say this, but I think it might apply to me as well.

“Up close with wildlife of all sizes and attitudes, I liked to create conversations that took me some place I needed to go. Sometimes the effort saved me from trouble. Sometimes it got me into trouble.”  

Recently, I met with a book group who’d read my first novel, “Deadly Trespass.” The opportunity to talk intimately with people who now had relationships with my characters and the book’s contents, was exhilarating. I came home and made a list of what they liked, so I could make sure their enthusiasm got transferred and infused … in detail … with my current writing.

One woman said she very much liked the narrator’s imaginary conversations with animals … the “magical realism” of them.

Wow. Didn’t think I was doing magical realism. I only offer up animal conversations occasionally and they are short and used to reveal character, move the plot, or add to the drama of a situation.

I think most of us have conversations with animals. Often, it’s just us speaking, but sometimes we imaginatively supply their possible replies. I think when this happens, the moment is magically real.

So I thought about some special animal moments I’ve experienced and have decided they were prepping me for my author foray into magical wildlife realism.

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What Spreads Beyond the Place Where It Started?

Cancer and rampant real estate development. Both are driven by relentless metastasis, a word usually reserved for the spread of cancer.

Here’s the medical definition: metastasis is when the cancer spreads beyond the place where it started to other areas of the body.

There is no metastasis-like definition for rampant real estate development, but it most often behaves like rampant, out-of-control cancer cells.

Maybe author Edward Abbey says it better when he writes about the loss of our wild world: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

This is a hard topic for me. I have also lived with so much loss of the outdoors that sometimes I’m not sure I can write about it . . .

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Joyful Even After . . . The Facts

On Earth Day, do we have enough residual hope to celebrate success, even as the future often looks really tough?

Today, we hear from my good friend, Sally Stockwell, Maine Audubon’s Director of Conservation. In the midst of the pandemic (2020) she sent out this inspirational Earth Day message about progress and humans pulling together.

After decades defending Maine’s wildlife and habitat, Sally should know. She was there on Earth Day #1 and, since then, every day has been an Earth Day for her.

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Fitness: Squats. Scat. Owl Pellets … And Some “Fit” Newsletter Advice

Winter Fitness Class. (I never made it back to the gym after Covid shut down)

AM Class: Squats to put snowshoes on. Snowshoe Raven the dog up through new snow into the woods for dog business and sniffing of fresh animal tracks. Return to see busy plow. Keep snowshoes on; clear off car. Squats to remove snowshoes; add boots. Drive car away to await plow job. Return and shovel out doorway and access to woodshed with large push shovel (saves my back). Change into ice cleat boots: more squats. The driveway ice was exposed by the plow. Sand a path to the car and to the woodshed. Load the wheelbarrow with two separate loads of wood and deliver each to the woodstove. Remove cleat shoes (final squat). Squats rather than bending protect my arthritic back. Stare at computer and think, “Yaaa, right. Got energy for that.”
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