Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright Side, it's time to celebrate the
Speaker 2: authors of Reese's Book Club with an all new installment
Speaker 2: of shelf Life.
Speaker 1: Today is really special.
Speaker 2: It's Reese's Book Club's one hundredth pick, and we're joined
Speaker 2: by author Margaret Wrinkle to talk about her book The
Speaker 2: Comfort of Crows.
Speaker 1: Fun fact.
Speaker 2: Margaret was Reese Witherspoon's high school English teacher, and she's
Speaker 2: sharing what she remembers of Reese as a student. It's Monday,
Speaker 2: September thirtieth. I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 1: And I'm Simone Boyce, and this is the bright Side
Speaker 1: from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together
Speaker 1: to share women's stories, laugh, learn, and bright near Day
Speaker 1: On My Mind Monday is brought to you by missus
Speaker 1: Myers Clean Day, inspired by the goodness of the garden.
Speaker 2: Simone, It's on my Mind Monday, which is our opportunity
Speaker 2: to start the week fresh with some inspiring perspective.
Speaker 1: What's on your mind today? Okay, first, I'm going to
Speaker 1: start with a temperature check. How do you feel when
Speaker 1: I say the term humility?
Speaker 2: Hmm?
Speaker 1: How does it feel in your body?
Speaker 2: Danielle, It's one of my favorite words. I love people
Speaker 2: who exemplify humility.
Speaker 1: I think it's actually a sign of confidence.
Speaker 2: Hmm. I like that.
Speaker 1: Say more about that.
Speaker 2: I think people that are humble know their own worth
Speaker 2: and so they don't have to shout it to the world.
Speaker 1: But I'm seeing you not.
Speaker 2: I don't know how if you agree with me, how
Speaker 2: do you feel about the word I do?
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you, I think to a point.
Speaker 1: I think that for a long time, women in particular
Speaker 1: were conditioned to be humble at the expense of not
Speaker 1: celebrating their skills, their accomplishments, right, And I saw that
Speaker 1: in my own home, Like my mom raised me to
Speaker 1: be extremely humble, and she is an extremely humble woman.
Speaker 1: But sometimes I do have mixed feelings about that term,
Speaker 1: because I wonder if you can be too humble and
Speaker 1: sell yourself short. Yeah, okay, so I've aired my baggage
Speaker 1: about the word humility. But I recently came across an
Speaker 1: article in the Washington Post that's all about a different
Speaker 1: kind of humility, and this is one that I can
Speaker 1: undoubtedly get behind. And this is called intellectual humility. So
Speaker 1: intellectual humility is acknowledging that we don't know everything, and
Speaker 1: that even some of our most deeply held beliefs are fallible.
Speaker 1: And research shows that intellectual humility is associated with curiosity,
Speaker 1: open mindedness, and expanding our general knowledge. Plus, people with
Speaker 1: more intellectual humility are also more likely to really scrutinize
Speaker 1: the evidence and quote. They're less likely to fall for
Speaker 1: misinformation and unsupported conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2: I also feel like they're more apt to ask questions.
Speaker 2: Do you agree?
Speaker 1: Of course? I think intellectual curiosity and intellectual humility go
Speaker 1: hand in hand, and the way you get there is
Speaker 1: through asking question yeah.
Speaker 2: Because I feel like people that are like that, are
Speaker 2: intellectually humble, are not afraid to not know something or
Speaker 2: to look silly.
Speaker 1: Not afraid to admit that you don't know something.
Speaker 2: So how do you think we can bring more intellectual
Speaker 2: humility to our own lives?
Speaker 1: Well, the writer of this piece, Richard Sima, laid out
Speaker 1: some ways that we can cultivate it. He says, the
Speaker 1: first step is taking a moment to reflect. So before
Speaker 1: you enter a conversation that you know is going to
Speaker 1: get heated, remind yourself of all the benefits that we
Speaker 1: just discussed that come with intellectual humility. And also get
Speaker 1: clear on your goal for the conversation. I read this
Speaker 1: book earlier this year, Super Communicators, by Charles Douhig, and
Speaker 1: whenever people are approaching sensitive conversations, he gives this advice
Speaker 1: come back to a shared core belief and make sure
Speaker 1: to emphasize that in the conversation. So if things are
Speaker 1: getting nasty, say something like, I know we both believe X,
Speaker 1: or I know we're both aligned here. I know we
Speaker 1: both want the same things, we just have different ways
Speaker 1: of getting there. Mmmm. Another way to cultivate intellectual humility
Speaker 1: is stepping outside yourself. I mean, one study showed that
Speaker 1: adults who wrote diary entries in the third person instead
Speaker 1: of the first person had more growth in intellectual humility
Speaker 1: and open mindedness. There are actually a lot of benefits
Speaker 1: of thinking in the third person. It can help you
Speaker 1: kind of pull yourself out of a spiral. And when
Speaker 1: I think about stepping outside yourself, I also think about
Speaker 1: travel right, like literally and physically exposing yourself to different
Speaker 1: perspectives and walks of life. For sure, we've talked about
Speaker 1: this on the show before.
Speaker 2: But when I don't know what to do, sometimes I
Speaker 2: think about my life as a play and then I
Speaker 2: sit in the audience and I'm like, Okay, what would
Speaker 2: I tell my character to do?
Speaker 1: WHOA, that's so cool. I don't know that I've ever
Speaker 1: done that, but that's a really cool thought exercise. Okay. Finally,
Speaker 1: Tip number three is just have gratitude. Emotions like awe,
Speaker 1: love and gratitude can help us transcend ourselves and increase
Speaker 1: intellectual humility least short term, so that can't hurt.
Speaker 2: I love that one, and that kind of speaks to
Speaker 2: what we were talking about earlier. That's the gratitude and
Speaker 2: humility are so linked.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons I love the word humility is
Speaker 2: it comes from the Latin root humulus, which means low
Speaker 2: or grounded, and it's derived from humus, but it means
Speaker 2: earth or soil. It's so to be of the earth,
Speaker 2: to be one with nature. And that brings us to
Speaker 2: our guests today because she's someone who spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time exploring the connection between nature and the human experience.
Speaker 2: Margaret w Renkell is the author of the Comfort of Crows,
Speaker 2: a Backyard Year, which tells the story of the changes
Speaker 2: of life through seasons. She actually spent an entire year
Speaker 2: documenting the plants and creatures in her backyard, and she
Speaker 2: is the one hundredth book pick for Reese's Book Club. Well,
Speaker 2: there's actually a deeper story there. Margaret w Renkell was
Speaker 2: Reese Witherspoon's high school English teacher, so this is a
Speaker 2: full circle.
Speaker 1: Moment for student and teacher. Well, after ten years of
Speaker 1: helping our students fall in love with literature and poetry,
Speaker 1: students like Reese, Margaret is now a full time writer
Speaker 1: and contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. So
Speaker 1: The Comfort of Crows is her third book of essays.
Speaker 1: Her others include Late Migrations and Graceland at Last, and
Speaker 1: then her next book, Leaf Cloud Crow, is a companion
Speaker 1: journal for the Comfort of Crows. Margaret Wrinkle joins us
Speaker 1: after the break stay with us thanks to our partners
Speaker 1: at missus Myers. You can learn a lot about a
Speaker 1: person by their dish soap. Missus Meyers's collection of household
Speaker 1: products are inspired by the garden and pack a punch
Speaker 1: against dirt and grime. Visit missus Myers dot com. Margaret,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Danielle, Well, we're so excited to have you. Congratulations on
Speaker 2: being at the one hundredth pick for Reese's Book Club
Speaker 2: with your latest book, The Comfort of Crows, a backyard year.
Speaker 2: So we heard that you thought you were being pranked
Speaker 2: when you found out what happened.
Speaker 3: Oh, I've never gotten a text from Reese before. When
Speaker 3: I hear from reesa is usually through an Instagram message
Speaker 3: or an email. And so I get this text and
Speaker 3: it says, Margaret, this is Reese, do you have a
Speaker 3: minute to talk. I write for the New York Times,
Speaker 3: so I have some pretty persistent trolls, and I just
Speaker 3: thought it might be somebody trying to figure out my
Speaker 3: real telephone number by pretending to be Reese, because there
Speaker 3: had just been a feature on Rees in The New
Speaker 3: York Times in which the author Elizabeth Echan mentioned that
Speaker 3: I had been Reese's high school English teacher, so would
Speaker 3: have been fresh on people's minds. Anyway, I gave her
Speaker 3: a little quiz. I said, if you're the real Reese Witherspoon,
Speaker 3: you'll know who a male teacher at Harpeth Hall in
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties what his name is. I figured nobody
Speaker 3: could look that up really quick and figure it out smart.
Speaker 3: It would have to be the real Rees, but she
Speaker 3: popped right up. Tad worked and I said, yes, Hi, Rees.
Speaker 1: Well you both shared this really touching video after the
Speaker 1: announcement was made, and it's this video where you two
Speaker 1: are walking through the halls of the school where Reese
Speaker 1: studied English under you. You're in the library, you're looking
Speaker 1: through books together, and you both got really emotional as
Speaker 1: you were reconnecting. What was that feeling like reconnecting again?
Speaker 3: It was what she was saying, More than you know,
Speaker 3: I hear from Rees from time to time. Sometimes several
Speaker 3: years might pass, but I feel like I never miss
Speaker 3: shows she's in. I never missed films she's made. I
Speaker 3: watch movies that Hello Sunshine and series is that Hello
Speaker 3: Sunshine produce, even when Reese is not in them soup.
Speaker 3: For all these years, I've felt like I've been there,
Speaker 3: you know, right beside her, even though I haven't been.
Speaker 3: So really, my emotional response to that what was happening
Speaker 3: in the library and that video was more about what
Speaker 3: she was saying at that moment, because she really it's
Speaker 3: not entirely it's not true, it's really not true at all,
Speaker 3: but she believes that It's true that I'm the one
Speaker 3: who made her understand the power of stories and the
Speaker 3: power of telling stories where people see themselves and recognize
Speaker 3: themselves in those stories. I remember what she was like
Speaker 3: as a teenager, and I didn't plant that seed in her.
Speaker 3: It was already there. It had been there. I think
Speaker 3: it had probably been there all her life.
Speaker 1: Well, she talks about being obsessed with stories from the
Speaker 1: time she was like six.
Speaker 3: You know, yes, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you just nurtured that seed, that that was
Speaker 1: already there. Well, it was.
Speaker 3: Such a huge part of her. She had already started
Speaker 3: making MOVI. She was just this kid, but she was
Speaker 3: making her second movie the first semester she was away.
Speaker 3: I mean, my only communication with her the first semester
Speaker 3: I taught her was through a fax machine. I sent
Speaker 3: notes and quizzes and reading assignments and writing assignments to
Speaker 3: her on set tutor. And then the next semester I
Speaker 3: was on maternity leave, And so it was the next
Speaker 3: year that I really got to know her. And I
Speaker 3: think it was probably not accidental that it was my
Speaker 3: first class as a mother, The first time I was
Speaker 3: seeing these teenage girls as almost like my daughters. So
Speaker 3: the connection with the students I taught that year was
Speaker 3: especially fierce and strong. But I also just think that
Speaker 3: Reese was hungry for those stories in those conversations.
Speaker 1: There's something that happens when you become a mom where
Speaker 1: you start to see everyone as someone else's child. At
Speaker 1: least I don't know that happened for me, it's.
Speaker 3: True, and I felt like I, you know, in the
Speaker 3: in my early years as a teacher, I thought of
Speaker 3: my students as my almost like myself as a young girl,
Speaker 3: or like my younger sister. But it was a very
Speaker 3: big shift in how I understood that these were someone's
Speaker 3: children and they were entrusted into my care in a
Speaker 3: way that I hadn't really understood before.
Speaker 2: When you say she credits you with her love of
Speaker 2: stories and really understanding the importance, what do you think
Speaker 2: she's crediting? How did you teach? What's the thing that
Speaker 2: you think has stuck with her.
Speaker 3: She has said in earlier interviews that I taught her
Speaker 3: to love hard stories, like hard books, not to be
Speaker 3: afraid of hard books. I don't know if that's true.
Speaker 3: I think it's probably that I offered a kind of
Speaker 3: permission to love a hard book. One of my favorite
Speaker 3: books when I was in eighth grade has someone else's
Speaker 3: handwriting on the back of the cover paperback of Edith
Speaker 3: Hamilton's Stories of Greek and Roman Mythology, And in somebody
Speaker 3: else's handwriting it says, this book is so boring, But
Speaker 3: I remember loving it, just absolutely drinking it in. And
Speaker 3: so I think what maybe she might have meant is
Speaker 3: that I was loving hard stories, not just hard stories,
Speaker 3: not just hard books, and not just hard poems, but
Speaker 3: that it was possible to love something that you did
Speaker 3: have to sometimes invest a little bit of effort into.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like surrendering to a book the way we
Speaker 3: talk about it now. It was more of an intensity
Speaker 3: than that. And I think it's good to read hard books,
Speaker 3: but I think it's good to read books that transport
Speaker 3: us to I think we have different needs at different
Speaker 3: times of our lives, and even in different days of
Speaker 3: the week, what are we looking for? Both are valuable,
Speaker 3: we don't have to choose.
Speaker 2: In much of your writing, you explore the connections between
Speaker 2: nature and love and loss and the human experience, and
Speaker 2: in this book you often observe how nature adapts and
Speaker 2: thrives despite challenges. So you're sharing personal memories. What has
Speaker 2: nature taught you about your own life and how has
Speaker 2: it helped you process your experiences?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I've been writing for all my life,
Speaker 3: really from when I could first hold a pencil. But
Speaker 3: I hadn't written a book until my mother died, and
Speaker 3: it was a very sudden death. She was eighty. It
Speaker 3: wasn't that she was young, but her mother had lived
Speaker 3: to be ninety seven, and her grandmother had lived to
Speaker 3: be ninety six. And my great grandmother grew up in
Speaker 3: an age without antibiotics or vaccines or she came from
Speaker 3: a line of very long lived women, and I thought
Speaker 3: I would have her for another decade dec and a half.
Speaker 3: And she died very suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage, and
Speaker 3: I was completely I just was lost. A few years
Speaker 3: before she died, she moved into the house across the
Speaker 3: street from me. She had dinner with our family every
Speaker 3: single night. She was a part of my daily life,
Speaker 3: and suddenly she was gone. I took a lot of
Speaker 3: comfort from watching that cycle play out in the natural
Speaker 3: world outside my window. Because all living things die. We
Speaker 3: don't think about it, but that's what happens. And what
Speaker 3: I saw out there was that animals grieve. When a
Speaker 3: squirrel loses a partner, or a hawk gets a squirrel's partner,
Speaker 3: or a hawk gets a squirrel's baby, the squirrel sits
Speaker 3: in the tree and cries, keens, just despair and grief.
Speaker 3: But it still goes on. And when you see creature
Speaker 3: after creature facing the same thing and going on, it
Speaker 3: felt like a reminder. That's not why they went on,
Speaker 3: It's just that it was a reminder that this is
Speaker 3: just a part of the cycle of how it works,
Speaker 3: and there's a beauty in it. Older people die because
Speaker 3: babies are still being born and we have to have
Speaker 3: room for them. It's part of how it works. And
Speaker 3: that was very comforting to me during that time. And
Speaker 3: then there's so many other ways you see resilience and
Speaker 3: the willingness to try again and move on in all
Speaker 3: kinds of situations. The flowers that are blooming for the
Speaker 3: bees today won't be blooming tomorrow, and the bees will
Speaker 3: find new flowers. They're not cursing the fact that their
Speaker 3: steady supply of this particular blossom is no longer blooming.
Speaker 3: They just go on to the next flower. I think
Speaker 3: that's a nice reminder.
Speaker 2: That change is ever present way of describing it. I'm
Speaker 2: curious how your understanding of home has evolved over time,
Speaker 2: both as a physical space and kind of as a
Speaker 2: metaphor for where we feel most grounded.
Speaker 1: I think that I.
Speaker 3: Am a very I'm a homebody, like I used to laugh.
Speaker 3: My husband, he's got an itchy foot, he loves, he
Speaker 3: has a lot of wonderlust. He's a school teacher still,
Speaker 3: and as soon as school is out he wants to
Speaker 3: hit the road and go somewhere. And one day I
Speaker 3: said to him, Honey, there are two kinds of people
Speaker 3: in the world. There are travelers and there are gardeners.
Speaker 3: And you're a traveler and I'm a gardener, and we're
Speaker 3: just you know, we're still just fine in our wife
Speaker 3: through that.
Speaker 1: And they marry each other, those two types of.
Speaker 3: People, they marry each other. Well, we certainly did. But
Speaker 3: I am very happy, very grounded in my little yard.
Speaker 3: But I think in a bigger sense, in some ways,
Speaker 3: I think we're just really imprinted on the landscape that
Speaker 3: forms us, not necessarily the one we're born, but the
Speaker 3: one where we spent our childhood and so pine trees.
Speaker 3: When I see pine trees, I feel at home because
Speaker 3: I grew up in the pine woods of Alabama. I
Speaker 3: don't live there, I haven't lived there since I was
Speaker 3: twenty two years old. But a pine tree makes me
Speaker 3: feel like home. Maybe most people feel that way about
Speaker 3: It might not be a pine tree. It might be
Speaker 3: a particular kind of oak or a particular kind of grass.
Speaker 3: But we see that and we respond to it. We
Speaker 3: feel this powerful pull toward it because we are creatures
Speaker 3: of the natural world, even though we live in houses,
Speaker 3: and we recognize that we are drawn to the landscapes
Speaker 3: that make us.
Speaker 2: We need to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back. Stay with us, and we're back, Margaret.
Speaker 1: I think you would love my backyard and my parents backyard,
Speaker 1: because we live down the street from each other, and
Speaker 1: we live in this desert area of Los Angeles, so
Speaker 1: we have all kinds of wildlife. We've got bobcats, we've
Speaker 1: got coyotes, we've got red tailed hawks. And my mom
Speaker 1: is not such a big fan of the wildlife, Margaret.
Speaker 3: My mother wasn't anywhere. I'll tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: I come over to my mom's house one day and
Speaker 1: She's like on her hands and knees spraying this substance
Speaker 1: around her yard. And I was like, Mom, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? And She's like, Oh, I'm spraying wolf peece
Speaker 1: so the coyotes won't come and eat my grandbabies.
Speaker 2: This is well, I'm prod the mechanism, Margaret. I want
Speaker 2: to ask about something you said about the landscapes we
Speaker 2: grow up with. I think the Southern landscape feels so
Speaker 2: central to your identity in your writing as well. How
Speaker 2: has this connection to place shaped how you write and
Speaker 2: how you move throughout the world.
Speaker 3: You know, most people don't think of the South this way,
Speaker 3: but the South is a hotbed of biodiversity. And part
Speaker 3: of the reason for that is that so much of
Speaker 3: the South is still rural. Before air conditioning, there was
Speaker 3: no industrial revolution in the American South, really because it
Speaker 3: was impossible for people to live here. They couldn't imagine. Now,
Speaker 3: everybody moves here from everywhere else in the world. We
Speaker 3: have a huge immigrant population. We have a huge migratory
Speaker 3: population of people coming from California and from Chicago and
Speaker 3: from New York because they like it it's a little warmer,
Speaker 3: among other things. But I think that because I was
Speaker 3: so interested in lizards and toads and frogs and bats
Speaker 3: and birds and little crawling things of every kind. And
Speaker 3: to still have that biodiversity, I mean, it's being lost rapidly,
Speaker 3: as it is everywhere because people haven't learned to treasure
Speaker 3: it and protect it. But we have plants growing just
Speaker 3: on the side of the road in rural Alabama. I'm
Speaker 3: a rural Tennessee rural Georgia that are on the endangered
Speaker 3: species list because they live in such a specific ecosystem
Speaker 3: and you can still just stop at a vacant lot
Speaker 3: and see them. Now, if you stop somewhere to put
Speaker 3: gas in your car and just walk next door, there's
Speaker 3: very likely to be something blooming there that you will
Speaker 3: never see anywhere else in the world. And I think
Speaker 3: that's part of it.
Speaker 1: Margaret. I want to tell you about my experience reading
Speaker 1: The Comfort of Crows. I find myself often rushing through
Speaker 1: books so that I can check them off my backlog list,
Speaker 1: not all of them, but some of them, because I
Speaker 1: always have this like productivity monster on my shoulder that's
Speaker 1: like be more efficient, do things, you know faster, and
Speaker 1: get things done. But when I read your writing, I
Speaker 1: completely slow down, and no one does this to me.
Speaker 1: You have these magical powers where your words just completely
Speaker 1: like call me and give me this piece. And one
Speaker 1: of my favorite quotes from your book is this one.
Speaker 1: The natural world's perfect indifference has always been the best
Speaker 1: cure for my own anxieties. And I just found so
Speaker 1: much comfort in your book and your writing, and it
Speaker 1: felt like a refuge for me even as I was
Speaker 1: moving through some daily stressors of my own. So asking,
Speaker 1: as someone who's envious of that kind of writing talent,
Speaker 1: what's the secret to perfecting writing that makes the reader
Speaker 1: move at a gentler pace.
Speaker 3: You really couldn't have said anything that would make me happier,
Speaker 3: because that is exactly what I hoped would be the
Speaker 3: effect of the comforter Crows. And I'll just be completely
Speaker 3: honest because that's I wrote that those essays to do
Speaker 3: that for myself, because I am as prone to racing
Speaker 3: thoughts and anxieties and worries and to do lists that
Speaker 3: never get done as anybody is. It's kind of like
Speaker 3: when people say how do you maintain your sense of optimism?
Speaker 3: And my kids laugh because I am not an optimistic person.
Speaker 3: But when I write what I'm writing is in some
Speaker 3: ways what I need to read in the process of
Speaker 3: putting words on the page, And for me, they almost
Speaker 3: always start with a pen or a pencil and a notebook.
Speaker 3: Lining words up one after another after another after another
Speaker 3: is a kind of focus that my brain doesn't naturally
Speaker 3: have in any other context. So even if I'm pulling
Speaker 3: weeds or I'm walking on a trail in the park,
Speaker 3: my mind is running pretty wild. But when I'm writing
Speaker 3: word by word by word by word, I can't race ahead.
Speaker 3: If I'm typing, I can because I can type really fast,
Speaker 3: but I can't write any faster than I can write,
Speaker 3: And I think that that's physical slowness has a way
Speaker 3: of slowing my racing thoughts as well. And I do
Speaker 3: think that you don't have to be writing an essay
Speaker 3: a week about your wild neighbors to have this effect.
Speaker 3: But if people can bring themselves to write down a
Speaker 3: few words, to give themselves permission, first of all, to
Speaker 3: put the phone down and just go and sit and
Speaker 3: listen to the birds, or to watch what's happening among
Speaker 3: the wild creatures. What are the bees doing in the flowers,
Speaker 3: and why are some of them still in some of
Speaker 3: them moving so quickly and studying them and trying to
Speaker 3: figure it out. Oh, that one's asleep. That bee is asleep,
Speaker 3: it's gotten tired, and the other bees are still working.
Speaker 3: So when you have permission to slow down and pay
Speaker 3: attention and then to word by word by word, write
Speaker 3: down your thoughts about what you've seen or what you've heard,
Speaker 3: or what you're experiencing, it has that way of slowing
Speaker 3: the autonomic nervous system. It makes your heart beat slower,
Speaker 3: it makes your thoughts stop racing. It always has for me.
Speaker 3: That's what I think.
Speaker 1: It's so clear from reading this book that you experience
Speaker 1: nature differently. So can you take me into your world
Speaker 1: for a minute. How do you experience nature?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Walk me through the first couple of things that you
Speaker 1: do when you're outside.
Speaker 3: It's almost unconscious, I think. For me, I don't think. Okay,
Speaker 3: first I'm going to check the flowers. Then I'm gonna
Speaker 3: check the trees, then I'm gonna check the very bearing
Speaker 3: bushes I've planted. I've been We've been in our house
Speaker 3: twenty nine and a half years, so we've over the years.
Speaker 1: It was just the.
Speaker 3: Typical sterile suburban backyard with privet and nandinas and use
Speaker 3: just regular old landscaping plants that don't feed wild animals.
Speaker 3: And we've slowly added over the years native plants, plants
Speaker 3: that are native to the South that produce berries or
Speaker 3: produce seeds or nuts, so that there's always something to
Speaker 3: feed the hungry creatures in the yard. And if you
Speaker 3: have planted to feed the wildlife, the wildlife comes to you.
Speaker 3: So you're just kind of looking around, Okay, what's blooming,
Speaker 3: but also who's drinking in the nectar? Oh, I didn't
Speaker 3: realize that hummingbirds also eat insects. They're not just drinking
Speaker 3: nectar from flowers. In the process of observing, you're taking
Speaker 3: mental note. This is a world. Every single day there's
Speaker 3: something I didn't know about the world. And you would
Speaker 3: think at my age, I'm sixty two, i'll be sixty
Speaker 3: three next month, and I've been doing this for a
Speaker 3: long long time, there wouldn't be any real surprises in
Speaker 3: this yard. But there always are, and so I'm looking
Speaker 3: for the surprises. I'm just wandering around with no agenda.
Speaker 3: I'm just looking at what catches my ear, catches my eye,
Speaker 3: what's scent I can follow to see if something's blooming
Speaker 3: that I hadn't realized was in bloom. I have a
Speaker 3: bird bath on my deck rail. I have a bird
Speaker 3: bath on a pedestal in the yard. I have a
Speaker 3: dish of water low to the ground for creatures like
Speaker 3: possums and raccoons and foxes. And you put water out,
Speaker 3: you bring wildlife very close, and they don't. You can't
Speaker 3: just sit on the backsteps and watch them come up
Speaker 3: and drink, but you can stand in the window and look.
Speaker 3: I do a lot of spying on my wild neighbors.
Speaker 1: I think you're a Disney princess, Margaret, and you didn't
Speaker 1: even realize it. You're snow white. I mean, you just
Speaker 1: you can't change my mind.
Speaker 3: With the little birds lighting on my finger.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned earlier, you're a contributing opinion writer for
Speaker 2: The New York Times, and you recently addressed this the
Speaker 2: Freedom to Read campaign, which was launched in response to
Speaker 2: the growing trend of book bands. It feels so crucial
Speaker 2: to protect diverse stories and diverse perspectives. What do you
Speaker 2: think the consequence is of book banning.
Speaker 3: It's a penalty, I think primarily for children who don't
Speaker 3: have the resources, the economic resources to buy books, because
Speaker 3: the public library has always been for everybody, and school
Speaker 3: libraries have always been for everybody in that school population.
Speaker 3: When you have people saying these books, I don't want
Speaker 3: my children to possibly run across these books, and then
Speaker 3: in the process deny other people's children of access to
Speaker 3: those books, it's anti democratic. I think it's the opposite
Speaker 3: of what this country is about. We're about freedom. If
Speaker 3: you don't want your child to read a book, don't
Speaker 3: let the child read the book, but don't take it
Speaker 3: out of the library, because if your child. Most of
Speaker 3: the time, these book bans are happening in suburban school
Speaker 3: systems where people are prosperous, but not every member of
Speaker 3: that community is prosperous. So in some families, if the
Speaker 3: book is not available in the library, they'll go buy it,
Speaker 3: but many families can't afford to buy it, and it
Speaker 3: has the way of stifling individuality, stifling freedom, stifling truth.
Speaker 3: I believe because the truth of America is the truth
Speaker 3: of diversity of many many different points of view, many
Speaker 3: many different human experiences, all coming together to believe in
Speaker 3: this idea of freedom.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to get to hear your point of view.
Speaker 1: In your own voice right now, because we would love
Speaker 1: for you to read for us from the comfort of crows.
Speaker 1: This passage is from the Fall Week one chapter. It's
Speaker 1: called the Season of Making Ready.
Speaker 3: The season of making ready Fall week one. Fall is
Speaker 3: hurricane season, and whenever the Gulf Coast takes a wallop,
Speaker 3: the rains barreling north usher in a few blessedly cool
Speaker 3: days in the midst of our usual heat and haze.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't wish a hurricane on anyone, but I admit
Speaker 3: to feeling grateful for the rain. One September I drove
Speaker 3: home to Alabama while a gray mist turned the Appalachian
Speaker 3: foothills into a landscape of enchantment. Fog gathered in the
Speaker 3: valleys and edged the fields. Shreds of clouds clung to
Speaker 3: the trees like a shroud. Solitude and silence made it
Speaker 3: easy to forget the existence of anything else. What is
Speaker 3: an automobile? What is an interstate? When all the world
Speaker 3: is folded into mist? I have to work to love September,
Speaker 3: that in between time, when the heavy heat lingers, but
Speaker 3: the maple leaves have already started to turn. Everyone is
Speaker 3: making ready, preparing in this time of plenty for the
Speaker 3: days of want ahead. In the garden, only the xenias
Speaker 3: are still blooming, and even they are shabby and dusted
Speaker 3: with mildew. The gleaming crows cling to the power lines panting.
Speaker 3: The indefatible bees and butterflies aren't troubled by the xenia's
Speaker 3: curling leaves or the gray powder that coats them. Our
Speaker 3: resident hummingbirds are gone now, but weary migrants keep arriving
Speaker 3: to visit the fresh blooms. As much as hurricane rains
Speaker 3: in the Gulf can bring relief to us here in Tennessee.
Speaker 3: It's wrong to hope for rain while butterflies and hummingbirds
Speaker 3: are on the wing for travel. The journey is long
Speaker 3: for residents. The preparation is hard for all of us.
Speaker 3: Winter is coming.
Speaker 1: Where were you mentally when you wrote that chapter.
Speaker 3: I had just made that drive when I wrote the
Speaker 3: first draft of it, and when I came back to
Speaker 3: it to work on whether it could work in this book,
Speaker 3: I could go right back. I could remember that exact thing,
Speaker 3: the mists clinging to the tops of the trees alongside
Speaker 3: the interstate, where it felt like I was in a
Speaker 3: magical landscape, and I wasn't in a car, and there
Speaker 3: were no other cars, and there was no interstate. It
Speaker 3: was just me and the mist and my thoughts.
Speaker 2: There were so many engaged readers who had questions for you,
Speaker 2: and so we're going to answer some listener questions.
Speaker 1: If you're up for it. Oh, I can't wait, Okay.
Speaker 2: So first step, we have Lisa, who has a special
Speaker 2: connection to you.
Speaker 1: Hi, Margaret.
Speaker 4: Like Greece, I was fortunate to have you as my
Speaker 4: high school English teacher. Much to my dismay at the time.
Speaker 4: You refuse to allow me to hide in the back
Speaker 4: of your class and write notes to my friends. You
Speaker 4: challenged me to overcome my shyness, and you empowered me
Speaker 4: with your feedback about my writing and interpretation of poems.
Speaker 4: I gained so much confidence in myself in your class
Speaker 4: because of how you saw me. It changed how I
Speaker 4: saw myself. I use those skills every day as a psychologist,
Speaker 4: and I don't believe I would have had the confidence
Speaker 4: to pursue my doctorate in psychology had I not had
Speaker 4: you as my teacher. Your book The Comfort of Crows
Speaker 4: just deep in my appreciation and awareness of the natural
Speaker 4: world through your beautiful descriptive imagery. To me, your writing
Speaker 4: about this topic feels like an exercise of mindfulness and
Speaker 4: how to hold grief and enjoy simultaneously. There was so
Speaker 4: much gratitude and wonder about the beauty of this world
Speaker 4: in your essays, alongside sadness and despair. What's the biggest
Speaker 4: life lesson you're hoping people will take away from your words?
Speaker 1: Gosh?
Speaker 3: Well, First of all, as I said to Es, I
Speaker 3: will also say to you, Lisa, I did not teach
Speaker 3: you those things. They were already in you, and they
Speaker 3: were already visible to me. I think all I had
Speaker 3: to do was work a little bit to make you
Speaker 3: see that they were there too. So I think you
Speaker 3: would have found that courage to get that PhD and
Speaker 3: change other people's lives no matter what. But I'm really
Speaker 3: grateful that you think I had even a small hand
Speaker 3: in it. As for what I hope people will take
Speaker 3: from the comfort of Crosey, I think you pretty much
Speaker 3: nailed it. I want people to read this book and
Speaker 3: fall in love with the natural world, and I want
Speaker 3: them to do that for two reasons.
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 3: People who are in love will fight furiously and indefatigably
Speaker 3: to save what they love. And the world is in trouble,
Speaker 3: and I think we all need to be for just
Speaker 3: warriors to save what we can while we still can,
Speaker 3: because it isn't too late. But I also want people
Speaker 3: to fall in love with the natural world because I
Speaker 3: think it's the antidote to the age we live in.
Speaker 3: We weren't created and didn't evolve to live at the
Speaker 3: speed of the Internet, and it's making us all nuts.
Speaker 3: And so if everybody falls in love with the natural world,
Speaker 3: they might set their phone down, they might step away
Speaker 3: from their screens and feel better. And I think we
Speaker 3: just all need a way to feel better right now.
Speaker 1: Okay, Margaret, Up next we have Melissa, who's got a
Speaker 1: question about what you would like your readers to come
Speaker 1: back to in the Comfort of Crows.
Speaker 5: I first heard about your book The Comfort of Crows
Speaker 5: last year and chose to listen to your audio version
Speaker 5: of it, which was wonderful. It felt like a guided
Speaker 5: meditation as I was walking my dog every day through December.
Speaker 5: But since I kind of i flew through it in
Speaker 5: one go, I've often thought of how this will be
Speaker 5: lovely to return to through the years, specifically when I
Speaker 5: know that I have my kind of cyclical low points
Speaker 5: and hearing that you are a rereader, do you feel
Speaker 5: like this book is especially meant as one to re
Speaker 5: encounter as our own seasons change. Was that purposeful or
Speaker 5: maybe did you have a specific overarching idea that you
Speaker 5: would love for us as rereaders to hold on to
Speaker 5: with this book.
Speaker 3: I'm a big believer in rereading. When I was a
Speaker 3: school teacher, I reread every book I taught every year
Speaker 3: for ten years. And the more you reread a book,
Speaker 3: the more you see what you missed the first time,
Speaker 3: or you come to it almost with a new self
Speaker 3: because the world has turned, your life has changed, you've changed,
Speaker 3: and so you experienced the text in a different way,
Speaker 3: but with the comfort of crows. I think one it
Speaker 3: feels strange to say I think people should read it twice,
Speaker 3: because there's so many wonderful books out there, and I
Speaker 3: don't want to hug all the reading time. But if
Speaker 3: you read it in one go the first time, it
Speaker 3: might be nice to read it week by week, which
Speaker 3: to every day of the week you think you might
Speaker 3: most need a dose of a reminder to slow down,
Speaker 3: to listen, to give yourself permission to participate in the
Speaker 3: eternal of the natural world. If you just pick that
Speaker 3: one day, whether it's Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon, and
Speaker 3: just read the chapter that corresponds to that week of
Speaker 3: the year. In a way, you will carry that message
Speaker 3: with you. It'll be something you can ponder and it'll
Speaker 3: last a little longer.
Speaker 2: Margaret, thank you so much for joining us on the
Speaker 2: bright Side today. This is a really special episode for us.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: It is such a special interview for me. It's so
Speaker 3: wonderful to be with you all, and to be with
Speaker 3: the Reese's book Club community. I'm just still dumbfounded that
Speaker 3: this even happened. I truly have enjoyed speaking with y'all.
Speaker 3: You This was a such interesting questions and such interesting
Speaker 3: things to think about.
Speaker 1: Margaret Wrinkle is the author of The Comfort of Crows,
Speaker 1: a Backyard Year, the one hundredth book selection of Reese's
Speaker 1: Book Club. You can find it wherever you get your books.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, Baby it's you yep.
Speaker 2: Singer songwriter Jojo is bringing her light to the bright
Speaker 2: Side to talk all about her new memoir Over the Influence.
Speaker 1: Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
Speaker 1: with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
Speaker 1: and at The bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and
Speaker 1: feel free to tag us at simone Voice and at
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: See you tomorrow, folks, keep looking on the bright side.