Wonderful -- we have huge orange slugs here in the forest (European red Slug) with ridged backs -- extraordinary creatures that are definitely a daily delight.
What a lovely daily delight, Jan. I once again find myself wishing Substack allowed people to post pictures in the comments. Nonetheless, I’m delighted by your description. 🐌
Lovely, intimate portrait of the slug and your brother, Holly. As for your comments prompts...oh boy! Those are some of the things I am drafting pieces around, so I'm not sure how to respond succinctly here. More to come...Yes, it's definitely a source of solace to be connected to a community of writers writing about kindness, compassion, growth. Thank you.
Your memory of your brother reminded me of when my father told me about going with a best friend about age 10 to use his father's rifle to shoot birds. He thought it would be fun until he watched his friend kill a bird. Dad was an avid birder well into his later years. He never thought of himself in those words. Didn't matter the species. He liked to see their habits and where they nested and their other habits.
Now, on slugs. I have always been partial to the sophisticated, Poirot like little brown guys. Absolutely understand that most people are clueless to the intelligence of slugs. I got my first inkling when I was trying to protect some young plant from them over one winter. I thought I had a failproof idea of putting the plants in a big wheel barrow in an open shed with a concrete floor. A slug was able to check this all out and take himself up the maze of metal braces and wood rails and outside of the wheel barrow to find his way in! And he came back again and again to outwit every thing I tried! Including hanging the plants from the rafters! The slime trails up the walls and across the rafters and down the cords were the evidence of every effort he/she made. I actually started thinking why am I trying to save these plants? Why am I not trying to save the slug?!??! An Einstein in slug disguise! In closing I encourage everyone to look for pics of 'ocean sea slugs'. If you have never seen them ... set yourself down. You will be amazed!
An Einstein and slug disguise! Love this. And I love your conclusion to this truly fascinating encounter of yours.
The story of your dad is really sweet too. There’s something special about people who love birds.
And oh my goodness! You were not kidding about the ocean sea slugs. If anyone else is reading this, go now. Google them. Now that was an absolute delight.
I love that “ glacial “ slug description. When I lived in California my child and I loved The Banana Slug String Band. Thanks for bringing that back to me.
Hahahaha. Well, while you are down a children’s music rabbit hole from the nineties, check out Cathy &Marcie- excellent musicians and they did awesome music for kids, too. Cathy Fink and Marcie Markser (?)
Looks like it’s Marxer. And I found a musical comedy., All Wigged Out, based on a health challenge, Marcie faced in 2022. It seems she and Cathy are still working together.
A lyrical memoir essay. Have to quote your beauty: "Is there a word for when you suddenly understand something about the way you move through the world by observing a creature whose entire range is the size of a garden?"
There are so many synchronicities here; I'm amazed.
Like your brother, I learned who I *wasn't* in the same way. It makes me question the grown-ups who told us about the salt experiment. What were they thinking? Was it a test to see if we were tiny psychopaths? Because we didn't come up with the idea ourselves and the Internet wasn't a thing then 🤔
Then there's the fact that I just checked out The Book of Delights from the library yesterday. Perhaps not a true synchronicity, I'm guessing I must have read about it on yours or Jeannine's pubs, but I can't remember now. What IS remarkable is that despite having never heard of or written an "after" piece, I saved the first story I ever read of yours: "...sometimes we give tongue" so I could do that very thing.
Jennie! that’s such a good point about the adults and the salt/slug thing!!! what is wrong with adults? Erm. Not us. 🤣
How lovely that you just got The Book of Delights. You’re going to find it delightful. I’m sure of it. Ha!
And I’m completely honored and just soaking in your having saved “Sometimes we give tongue” for that purpose. Truly, I can’t think of a better compliment. Thank you. ♥️ (it happens to be one of my favorite pieces of published here.)
I had just written to a cousin who supports my stack and had recently asked on a call why I haven't posted lately. I included the picture of my folks; despondent both, looking in different directions. He was at his desk in the master bedroom where I lived with them from 8-18, absent-mindedly examining the check book but unable to really see it anymore. She was sitting in the uncomfortable leather chair perhaps two feet closer to me where I sat on their bed, looking at them. Her rack of colored pens, arranged in order, standing behind her head where she sat, staring into thin air and away from her latest page of the coloring book she spend the last three or four years of her life filling up. When I was young, I remember my mother always determined to and how important it is, to color in between the lines. My mother, the stickler for following the rules. To do what NICE GIRLS DO. She didn't look happy either. Today I was feeling his lack of focus and her distaste for the safe and predictable. I should go outside and look for slugs.
Oh, thank you for sharing this window into your world and moment. And that something I wrote may have inspired you to look at a different direction during a difficult time fills me with joy. Isn’t it one of the most beautiful reasons to have connections far and wide? Our sharing with each other makes my days infinitely better.
May you find slugs and sundry other wonderful creatures. 🐌
I'm glad you and your brother respect the little guys! We have so many here, though not the banana type, in the sea-level dampness of this part of the state. (I sometimes call them unhoused snails.) While I have a slightly harder time finding an affinity for them compared to other critters, they don't repulse me like they do some people. When I'm lying in bed and they find their way to the wall behind my head (that's only happened once, but still...), or to the bathroom and across my toothbrush., well, let's just say I'm a bit more vocal about it. 🤬
Oh my goodness, Elizabeth. I would for sure be more vocal about those situations. 🤣
I called my sister before posting this. I was going to have her read it. But she was driving in a storm with four teenagers at the time. (I decided to post this last minute, as the other couple of pieces I’ve been working on, weren’t quite ready.) She said she trusted my judgment.
I didn’t call the brother in question. (I have three.) Now, i’m realizing I maybe should have.
He’s a wonderful man, kind to creatures great and small, good with land and soil, plant and animal. I hope it wouldn’t hurt him to reflect on this memory or have me do so. For me, it paints his tenderness and curiosity beautifully.
“There is some profound love lesson in witnessing a person who is so much a part of you you sometimes don’t know where he ends and you begin learn who he is—or, rather, who he isn’t—under a bright sun that lives in the meditation and regard of another person who’s part of your becoming.” Gasp. Your words, your love lesson silences me. ❤️
While on vacation last fall I was sitting, looking out at the ocean, starting a meditation. There were bushes directly behind the rock I was sitting on and something made me turn and I saw a slug on a leaf. There was just me and her (bad grammar? I'm not sure!) and the ocean. I sat and watched her for ages, knowing what a gift it was to experience that moment together when the big vast ocean and sky could have swallowed us up.
At the moment, I am around the Corvallis area a few hours north of you. I hope to be southward bound at some point, perhaps late spring. I quite frequently stop in Ashland when I travel that way. A dear friend lives there. I will reach out when I do so. It would be wonderful to connect in person.
You always write so beautifully, it is possible this entire essay is a lesson in love Holly...♥️ "...witnessing a person who is so much a part of you sometimes don’t know where he ends and you begin..." this is a rare gift, not only the connection but the knowing it's there - we are not all so lucky or astute.
As Jan says below, we have European Red slugs and also the Leopard slug here, both types are huge and fascinating, I welcome them in the garden as they tend to prey on those others that destroy my tender crops!
Thank you, Susie. Yes, I do know how fortunate I am to have those connections. I have five siblings, and we are all quite close, all respectful of each other’s becoming. It is a gift I try not to take for granted.
I love that you welcome slugs in your garden, which I imagined to be a wonderful place.
Oh how much I loved this. This was a sheer delight and it filled me with awe, which is just what I need as I am going through a tough time, healing a broken heart. Thank you. I listened to your voice over, and read while listening (to avoid my mind wondering off into the dark places where it seems to enjoy dwelling these days).
Thank you, Liza, for sharing where you’re at. I’m sorry you’ve been going through something difficult. I’m so grateful for the community we have here on this platform, where we can share with each other and buoy each other. And to have inspired awe. What a gift to know. Thank you.
May you find solace, awe, and embrace of community or whatever you need to get you through this.
Beautifully written and told. Resonate with your brother's experience as a kid. Wonderful witnessing/sharing. Drawn in by the photo and time-lapse video, glad I stayed to listen to the whole piece.
Thank you, thank you, Erik. Glad you listened too. I use GarageBand and a decent (but by no means high-end) microphone by Rode and then mess with the settings and plug-in a bit to give it the sound quality I like. I base it on GarageBand’s “natural vocal” setting.
Wonderful -- we have huge orange slugs here in the forest (European red Slug) with ridged backs -- extraordinary creatures that are definitely a daily delight.
What a lovely daily delight, Jan. I once again find myself wishing Substack allowed people to post pictures in the comments. Nonetheless, I’m delighted by your description. 🐌
Lovely, intimate portrait of the slug and your brother, Holly. As for your comments prompts...oh boy! Those are some of the things I am drafting pieces around, so I'm not sure how to respond succinctly here. More to come...Yes, it's definitely a source of solace to be connected to a community of writers writing about kindness, compassion, growth. Thank you.
Right?! thank goodness for all of it.
Sounds like fabulous topics for your drafts. May they be filled with energy and magic and delight (or whatever else it is you hope to fill them with).
Your memory of your brother reminded me of when my father told me about going with a best friend about age 10 to use his father's rifle to shoot birds. He thought it would be fun until he watched his friend kill a bird. Dad was an avid birder well into his later years. He never thought of himself in those words. Didn't matter the species. He liked to see their habits and where they nested and their other habits.
Now, on slugs. I have always been partial to the sophisticated, Poirot like little brown guys. Absolutely understand that most people are clueless to the intelligence of slugs. I got my first inkling when I was trying to protect some young plant from them over one winter. I thought I had a failproof idea of putting the plants in a big wheel barrow in an open shed with a concrete floor. A slug was able to check this all out and take himself up the maze of metal braces and wood rails and outside of the wheel barrow to find his way in! And he came back again and again to outwit every thing I tried! Including hanging the plants from the rafters! The slime trails up the walls and across the rafters and down the cords were the evidence of every effort he/she made. I actually started thinking why am I trying to save these plants? Why am I not trying to save the slug?!??! An Einstein in slug disguise! In closing I encourage everyone to look for pics of 'ocean sea slugs'. If you have never seen them ... set yourself down. You will be amazed!
An Einstein and slug disguise! Love this. And I love your conclusion to this truly fascinating encounter of yours.
The story of your dad is really sweet too. There’s something special about people who love birds.
And oh my goodness! You were not kidding about the ocean sea slugs. If anyone else is reading this, go now. Google them. Now that was an absolute delight.
Thank you, Sandy!
I love that “ glacial “ slug description. When I lived in California my child and I loved The Banana Slug String Band. Thanks for bringing that back to me.
The banana slug string band?! i’ve never heard of them. Now I have something I must look up. You have the best musical references, Emily.
You have the best words! This was lovely. 💜 ( personal favorite: the water cycle boogie…😂)
Hahaha! Back having listened to “dirt made my lunch.” 😄
Hahahaha. Well, while you are down a children’s music rabbit hole from the nineties, check out Cathy &Marcie- excellent musicians and they did awesome music for kids, too. Cathy Fink and Marcie Markser (?)
Looks like it’s Marxer. And I found a musical comedy., All Wigged Out, based on a health challenge, Marcie faced in 2022. It seems she and Cathy are still working together.
Oh, my mind, the rabbit holes .
Oh wonderful! They are so talented.
A lyrical memoir essay. Have to quote your beauty: "Is there a word for when you suddenly understand something about the way you move through the world by observing a creature whose entire range is the size of a garden?"
♥️♥️♥️🐌
Thank you for this. There are wonders all around us! Those include nature writers/photographers/ videographers on substack. Again, thanks :-)
Ain’t that the truth? Thank you ever so much for reading and commenting, Joni. ♥️
There are so many synchronicities here; I'm amazed.
Like your brother, I learned who I *wasn't* in the same way. It makes me question the grown-ups who told us about the salt experiment. What were they thinking? Was it a test to see if we were tiny psychopaths? Because we didn't come up with the idea ourselves and the Internet wasn't a thing then 🤔
Then there's the fact that I just checked out The Book of Delights from the library yesterday. Perhaps not a true synchronicity, I'm guessing I must have read about it on yours or Jeannine's pubs, but I can't remember now. What IS remarkable is that despite having never heard of or written an "after" piece, I saved the first story I ever read of yours: "...sometimes we give tongue" so I could do that very thing.
Consider me inspired 🤩
Jennie! that’s such a good point about the adults and the salt/slug thing!!! what is wrong with adults? Erm. Not us. 🤣
How lovely that you just got The Book of Delights. You’re going to find it delightful. I’m sure of it. Ha!
And I’m completely honored and just soaking in your having saved “Sometimes we give tongue” for that purpose. Truly, I can’t think of a better compliment. Thank you. ♥️ (it happens to be one of my favorite pieces of published here.)
I had just written to a cousin who supports my stack and had recently asked on a call why I haven't posted lately. I included the picture of my folks; despondent both, looking in different directions. He was at his desk in the master bedroom where I lived with them from 8-18, absent-mindedly examining the check book but unable to really see it anymore. She was sitting in the uncomfortable leather chair perhaps two feet closer to me where I sat on their bed, looking at them. Her rack of colored pens, arranged in order, standing behind her head where she sat, staring into thin air and away from her latest page of the coloring book she spend the last three or four years of her life filling up. When I was young, I remember my mother always determined to and how important it is, to color in between the lines. My mother, the stickler for following the rules. To do what NICE GIRLS DO. She didn't look happy either. Today I was feeling his lack of focus and her distaste for the safe and predictable. I should go outside and look for slugs.
Oh, thank you for sharing this window into your world and moment. And that something I wrote may have inspired you to look at a different direction during a difficult time fills me with joy. Isn’t it one of the most beautiful reasons to have connections far and wide? Our sharing with each other makes my days infinitely better.
May you find slugs and sundry other wonderful creatures. 🐌
I'm glad you and your brother respect the little guys! We have so many here, though not the banana type, in the sea-level dampness of this part of the state. (I sometimes call them unhoused snails.) While I have a slightly harder time finding an affinity for them compared to other critters, they don't repulse me like they do some people. When I'm lying in bed and they find their way to the wall behind my head (that's only happened once, but still...), or to the bathroom and across my toothbrush., well, let's just say I'm a bit more vocal about it. 🤬
Sweet story, Holly. Will your siblings read it?
Oh my goodness, Elizabeth. I would for sure be more vocal about those situations. 🤣
I called my sister before posting this. I was going to have her read it. But she was driving in a storm with four teenagers at the time. (I decided to post this last minute, as the other couple of pieces I’ve been working on, weren’t quite ready.) She said she trusted my judgment.
I didn’t call the brother in question. (I have three.) Now, i’m realizing I maybe should have.
He’s a wonderful man, kind to creatures great and small, good with land and soil, plant and animal. I hope it wouldn’t hurt him to reflect on this memory or have me do so. For me, it paints his tenderness and curiosity beautifully.
A masterpiece of tenderness and curiosity!
If I could share it here, I would. There's a picture in your inbox. Ha!
Love it!
I keep wishing would allow photos in the comments. But it’s also wonderful to get some gems like yours in my DMs
“There is some profound love lesson in witnessing a person who is so much a part of you you sometimes don’t know where he ends and you begin learn who he is—or, rather, who he isn’t—under a bright sun that lives in the meditation and regard of another person who’s part of your becoming.” Gasp. Your words, your love lesson silences me. ❤️
Thank you, dear friend. Your attention fills my heart. ♥️
While on vacation last fall I was sitting, looking out at the ocean, starting a meditation. There were bushes directly behind the rock I was sitting on and something made me turn and I saw a slug on a leaf. There was just me and her (bad grammar? I'm not sure!) and the ocean. I sat and watched her for ages, knowing what a gift it was to experience that moment together when the big vast ocean and sky could have swallowed us up.
What a gift indeed, and what a gift for you to share this moment with you and the slug of the ocean. Thank you, Donna. ♥️🐌
I grew up with three brothers and no sisters. I relate to that feeling of not knowing where I ended and where they began.
And...I'm beyond excited that Ross Gay is speaking at our small local public library this week!
What? That's amazing. Which library? What day? You're on the Oregon coast, no?
We’re inland between Ashland and Medford. On Thursday, he will speak at the Medford library. I’m really excited!
Oh I see. Beautiful area but a bit too far for me to hop over for a listen / to meet you (which would be FABULOUS). Perhaps someday. :)
Where are you??
At the moment, I am around the Corvallis area a few hours north of you. I hope to be southward bound at some point, perhaps late spring. I quite frequently stop in Ashland when I travel that way. A dear friend lives there. I will reach out when I do so. It would be wonderful to connect in person.
I have a pad with 50amp and water. Just waiting for you.
You always write so beautifully, it is possible this entire essay is a lesson in love Holly...♥️ "...witnessing a person who is so much a part of you sometimes don’t know where he ends and you begin..." this is a rare gift, not only the connection but the knowing it's there - we are not all so lucky or astute.
As Jan says below, we have European Red slugs and also the Leopard slug here, both types are huge and fascinating, I welcome them in the garden as they tend to prey on those others that destroy my tender crops!
Thank you, Susie. Yes, I do know how fortunate I am to have those connections. I have five siblings, and we are all quite close, all respectful of each other’s becoming. It is a gift I try not to take for granted.
I love that you welcome slugs in your garden, which I imagined to be a wonderful place.
Oh how much I loved this. This was a sheer delight and it filled me with awe, which is just what I need as I am going through a tough time, healing a broken heart. Thank you. I listened to your voice over, and read while listening (to avoid my mind wondering off into the dark places where it seems to enjoy dwelling these days).
Thank you, Liza, for sharing where you’re at. I’m sorry you’ve been going through something difficult. I’m so grateful for the community we have here on this platform, where we can share with each other and buoy each other. And to have inspired awe. What a gift to know. Thank you.
May you find solace, awe, and embrace of community or whatever you need to get you through this.
Beautifully written and told. Resonate with your brother's experience as a kid. Wonderful witnessing/sharing. Drawn in by the photo and time-lapse video, glad I stayed to listen to the whole piece.
How did you record the audio? It sounds so good.
Thank you, thank you, Erik. Glad you listened too. I use GarageBand and a decent (but by no means high-end) microphone by Rode and then mess with the settings and plug-in a bit to give it the sound quality I like. I base it on GarageBand’s “natural vocal” setting.
The description about the slug's face inverting, and you saying, "I didn't know you could do that!" Totally resonated with that shocked amazement.
Yay. 🐌
Thanks for reading and commenting!