I Can't Give You a Hug

You want a hug? Get yourself a geranium.

Dear Readers:

This is a bit of a departure for me, because I’ve been inspired to pull the curtain back abit in order to explain why I am here and what I’m trying to accomplish with this newsletter, which is called “One Good Thing.”

In addition to sharing interesting or positive stories from the news or the arts, over the past year or so I’ve also chosen to reveal some of my personal efforts to find “good things” in my own life, in the hopes that it might inspire readers to also look close to home for ways to feel better.

Often, my efforts take me (and you) into nature. I post photos depicting the sometimes stark but always beautiful landscape surrounding the town my family has lived in for 225 years.

You’ve tolerated my ruminations on the perennially awful weather and the weird way it inspires a deep sense of gratitude for the rare glory of a lovely day. You’ve gone on hikes with me; we’ve worshipped waterfalls, skied, skated, and slid down winter-warped hills. We’ve watched the seasons slide one into another, all viewed from my pastoral perch.

[Summertime’s soft view from my front porch]

Why have I gone so deeply into nature in search of good things? I think it’s because everything else seems so dramatically harsh and challenging right now. It feels as if we are facing into the wind of an unrelenting category five hurricane.

So forgive me if I take to the woods and cling to the promise of spring.

Following are two letters written during World War I. Both reflect the deep hope and optimism brought on by springtime’s reviving and ineffable changes, especially after an “endless and eternal winter” (as the poet Katherine Mansfield described the long winter of 1919).

“The spring is coming. Yesterday the lambs were dancing, and the birds whistled, the doves cooed all day down at the farm. The world of nature is wonderful in its revivifying spontaneity. But oh God, the world of man—who can bear any more? I can’t bear any more of mankind. One can only lapse. At any rate, the cooing of the doves is very real, and the blithe impertinence of the lambs as they peep round their mothers. They affect me like the Rainbow, as a sign that life will never be destroyed, or turn bad altogether.

I keep hoping now for an intimation of spring in the heart of mankind, new world to come. Do you catch any signs? As soon as I do, I shall come forth. One waits in a strange expectancy. I suppose we have our hour for coming out, like everything else.”

D. H. Lawrence
Letter to Dollie Radford
23th February 1917

—The Collected Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol.1, edited by James T. Boulton

“The only consolation is that spring is before us. . . This has been an endless eternal winter. How can Nature remain so remote from ugly man—so blind and deaf to all his horrid ways—and just—calmly and wonderfully—act as though for angels! Will the sun really shine from morning till night again? Will it be warm enough for “us lizards of convalescence” (as Nietzche says) to really bask?”

Katherine Mansfield
Letter to Ottoline Morrell
8th March 1919

(Thank you to Letters of Note, my favorite repository of fascinating letters.)

Last week I wrote about a surprise nighttime trip into the woods to spot spotted salamanders.

What a weird little miracle these creatures are!

In response to that report, a thoughtful reader reached out to express her disappointment.