From 104. Entering a Long Farm Lane. Inspired by Whitman’s long run-on sentence for this week, I wrote one of my own. Take a deep breath before reading on. 

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My favorite morning routine, if the kids have been properly fed or at the very least they have chosen something on a plate or a bowl to start their day, is to first find my coffee cup abandoned somewhere in the house when a child asked something of me, as they are prone to do, cold now the coffee is, requiring a quick 30 second button reheat in the microwave because steam hot swirls is part of the routine, after which I then take that cup and my bare feet through the screen door, carefully latching it so as to not alert the children to my exit, and I walk passed the flower boxes begging for a drink, down the weathered wood steps, remembering to step around the one board that pops up at the side, then down the concrete path where I immediately must push my way through the two bushes planted many years and feet apart but that always become lovers again by midsummer, stretching their arms wide like two ladies on a lounge chair by the pool, overcrowding the path so much that the Baptisia arms of one lady tickle my legs with her gentle vine leaves and the scent of the black Bughane plant from the other lady perfumes the air when I disturb it’s fluffy white candlestick flowers, making the air smell like Caroline’s birthday, and finally flummoxing the bumblebees that have beaten my to the garden with a gentle “well it’s about time you arrived” whisper that is supposed to be a warning but sounds more like “good morning.”

From section 103. New Themes Entered Upon.

That’s how the next section began. The nature notes part of Specimen Days. A transition point, new themes to enter upon. For pages before, Whitman wrote about war and sickness and darkness. And he notes this is an abrupt change, as I mentioned in the opening to this challenge. But now, he says “I restore my book to the bracing and buoyant equilibrium of concrete outdoor nature, the only permanent reliance for sanity of book or human life.”

I need some new themes too. Not just in my writing life but my garden as well. 

Lately, the garden is looking a little bit like my writing–lifeless and drained. The drought and high heat from this summer has not been kind to the things that grow. The grass is frizzled, as if someone took a torch to it. The leaves of many perennials are yellowing, signs of dormancy. Even the flowering plants have little to show this year. 

Frustrated and restless, and probably procrastinating my writing, as I’m prone to do, I turned my attention to the vegetable garden. Maybe the perennials were spent, but at least I could try to do something about the vegetable garden. 

On an unusually cool morning, in an unusually quiet moment, I found myself on my hands and knees in the garden eager to work. I cleared away the weeds in between the tomatoes and the lettuce and the peppers. I harvested what was ready–the carrots and the green beans and the beets. I pulled out what was spent–the peas and the arugula and the broccoli that never grew. When I stood up to admire my work, the garden boxes were sparse. Sparse, and yet alive. The tomatoes were just starting their shining season. The peppers had little flowers. Even the lettuce looked healthier than I knew it was. Instead of noticing what wasn’t there, I was finally able to see what was, as well as what could be. I started to dream of a second planting season, one that could take me all the way until November. 

Maybe that’s what I’m doing with this new project. I’m simplifying my goals. Just nature. Just notice. Just write. With a simplified focus, I’ve cleared out the parts of writing overcrowding my brain–the hard stuff, the long stuff, the not quite fleshed stuff–leaving room for the things that are actually growing well–my thoughts on nature–to thrive. And with this cleared out space, I feel there may be room for more writing to grow. 

The garden isn’t finished just yet. 100 days is a long time to watch things grow. New themes all around. Onward.

It all started with a information sign at a scenic overlook on the side of the road in the north east of Kansas. 

Just outside my childhood hometown of Manhattan, KS, to be specific. At the Konza Prairie Scenic Overlook, to be even more specific. And I want to be. I want to tell you about this place, the land I once called home, and what it means to me. But that’s a story for another day. 

What you need to know is that my family and I were making a quick stop to admire the beautiful landscape of the Flint Hills on our way out of town. And you should also know that I don’t read sign posts. That’s what Mike does. But I had done my poetic feely sensy thing taking in the view, as I’m inclined to do, and Mike was reading the information sign, as he is inclined to do. And I hadn’t meant to read the sign, I didn’t need to read about a place I know like home. But still, I glanced over his shoulder on my way back to the car, because I’m nosey like that (curious, I should call it curious.) and that’s when I noticed a quote. Now I may not care about information signs but I LOVE a quote. So I read more. 

"As to scenery, while I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara Falls, the Upper Yellowstone, and the like afford the greatest natural shows, I am not so sure but the prairies and plains, while less stunning at first sight, last longer, fill the esthetic sense fuller, precede all the rest, and make North America's characteristic landscape. Even the prairie's simplest statistics are sublime." – Walt Whitman

I was taken both by the words that rang ever so true, but also by the author of the words. Not a scientist or an explorer but a poet, charmed by the prairie I know and love. Getting back in the car and making our way down the highway towards Minneapolis, I couldn’t stop thinking about Whitman’s words. What are they from? And does he have more to say? I added this curiosity to my list of things to google as soon as we got back home. 

Well, you know how these things go. Google searches lead to articles which lead to books. I learned Whitman did have much more to say about prairies and he put it all in a book called Specimen Days. And he didn’t just have words to say about prairies but also about mountains and rivers and plants and seas. Also war and death and politics but that part was less appealing to me. It was the poetic descriptions of nature that intrigued me most. As the author of this essay said “Whitman’s democratic awe is distinctive not simply for its range and its exuberance and its surprise, but for its willingness to dwell—to unfurl a pleasure fully.” 

Willingness to dwell?? That’s me. I’m a dweller. Obviously the next step was to get my hands on this book. This curiosity adventure became even more intriguing when I learned my library only had one copy on their shelves. What was this magical book no one is reading where a famous poet unfurls a pleasure fully??

As it turns out, Specimen Days is actually more a collection of shortish diary entries. The first half is mostly about the civil war and recovery in the hospital. The second half, though, is what he refers to as “nature notes.” Each entry has a title like "Bumblebees," "The Lessons of a Tree," or the one I first discovered “America’s Characteristic Landscape." I was charmed once again by the simple observation turned into poetry. Charmed, but also not surprised. I feel the same way about nature. I could write about nature and it’s metaphors all day if one would let me, fill my own journal with "nature notes."

Maybe, I thought, I should. 

For years, I’ve struggled to build a routine of journaling into my writing practice. I know the importance of long hand writing. I’ve done the work of morning pages. I buy the pretty journals and the just right pens and I keep them at the ready. 

And still, I struggle. I sit down to write and I feel uninspired. It feels forced, clunky, and [gasp] whiny. I too often feel like the sixteen year old me starting every entry "Dear Diary…" before laying out a litany of complaints. I just feel like the writing I do in my journal dies in my journal.

In the introduction of the 1971 published edition of Specimen Days, Alred Kazin insights that "writing about nature seems as good to Whitman as breathing; you can say of many sketches in Specimen Days that he breathes by writing them."

Perhaps that’s what my writing is missing. In my push to make journaling a habit, I was forcing writing I didn’t care enough about. Maybe instead, I needed to find a path towards something that feels as easy to me as breathing.

And so here "it" is, my readers—the idea that began with a quote that led to the discovery of a book that led to inspiration that formed into a challenge. In the next 100 days, I will read from Specimen Days, beginning with the section he designates as the "abrupt change of field and atmosphere," where the war diary comes to a close and the nature notes begin. I will take a section a day, and use that as a starting point to observe my own garden and natural setting, to dwell, if you will, to unfurl a pleasure fully.

The challenge is part poetry/writing study, part garden observation, part writing challenge. I’ll start every entry in my journal because that is the true challenge, to bring life to my long hand writing. Maybe I’ll share these, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll write a lot, maybe just a few notes. It’s a practice, not an assignment. At most, I hope it brings breath to my writing life that feels exhausted after a full and distracting summer. 

In the transition section before the nature notes begin, Whitman speaks on the time he spent recovering from war at a farmhouse of friends. "It is to my life there that I, perhaps, owe partial recovery, a sort of second wind, or semirenwal of the lease of life."

May this challenge be just that for me, for my writing, or perhaps, even better, for you.

Curious to follow along? You can find the journal entires from Specimen Days here. I began on August 1 with 103. New Themes Entered Upon.