A World of Extravagance

Living amid 'spendthrift genius' and 'intricacy unfathomable'

Joris Hoefnagel, Plate 58: Shells, including Abalone(?),c. 1575/1580

Hello readers!

Welcome to all those of you who are new subscribers. As a quick introduction: this Substack seeks to cultivate conversations surrounding place, community, and care. Readers get to join in book club discussions, brainstorm ideas for community involvement and investment, and consider what it means to be good neighbors and good stewards of the earth. I’m Gracy—a bookworm, garden enthusiast, writer, teacher-in-training, and sourdough nerd! This summer, we’re reading Annie Dillard’s (the “Thoreau of the Suburbs”) classic book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

I’m up in the mountains this week, and so I apologize for the belated book club post. Because we’re soaking up some summer rest time right now, this post will be a bit shorter than our other book club posts. Thank you for your graciousness as we set aside time for mental and physical rest!

The goal for this week is to read Chapter 8: “Intricacy.” There are so many fascinating insights in this chapter. It may be my favorite in the book. In it, Dillard considers the staggering complexity and superfluity of the world. We live in a world that is full of unnecessary detail; things are extravagant, excessive, for no apparent reason. To ask why? Why do things exist? And why do they exist in the way they do? is, in Dillard’s opinion, to reach toward mystery with faith.

This insight has resonated with me of late, because I’ve been re-encountering the smells of my childhood. I knew, when I moved from Idaho to Virginia, that I loved and missed the smell of pine. But I did not know how much I loved the smell of sagebrush. I did not know that sagebrush, in fact, smells like home. Slightly sweet, slightly bitter, sagebrush smells incredible after the rain. Hiking along a sagebrush-covered hill, upon moving back to Idaho, I’ve realized how deeply I had missed that scent.

On another occasion, while walking along the Boise River with a friend, I began sniffing the air in excitement. “What is that smell?” I asked. “I know that smell!” It was sweet and resinous. Obviously a tree smell. And I knew that it was a scent from my childhood. But I didn’t know its source. As far as I’ve been able to investigate, it’s the smell of the cottonwood trees. (Folks who know the Boise River: let me know if there’s another sweet-smelling tree that might be the culprit!)

All this to say: how can there be so many sweet, wonderful, surprising scents in this dry mountainous landscape? How is it that my nose remembers all these unique tree and brush smells from my childhood? It’s an extravagant gift, unimaginably wonderful. It’s a mystery that fills me with awe.

A wonderful quote from Dillard’s chapter.

“What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek.”

Your outdoor challenge for the week: try to spend at least 3 hours outside this week—and spend some of that time looking for details you’ve never noticed before. What gorgeous, extravagant details are lying all around you, in plain sight?

Happy Wednesday!

– Gracy