Dear readers,
Welcome back to Granola, and the summer-ish book club (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, in case you’re new) that I haven’t quite finished yet. I’m so sorry for my absence for much of September. School started, and everything has been insane. I’ve had two out-of-state trips, three lectures, and five classes to plan in the last three to four weeks. For those of you willing to be patient with me and bear with me: this is still a space where we discuss place, community, and books. We just discuss it as time and kids and school schedules and meal planning allow. :)
Our goal for the next few days (whenever you can—it’s okay if it takes you 14 days, as it took me) is to read Chapter 13 in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. It’s a chapter about parasites and predators, sacrifice and survival. It unpacks Annie Dillard’s suspicion that our whole world is a bit “nibbled” around the edges. (Sometimes, it might feel half-devoured.) Ours is not just a dog-eat-dog world; sometimes, it’s a world of the almost-eaten, the half-chewed, the scarred, and the tired.
In the late months of August, Dillard notices that the bushes outside her house are riddled with holey leaves. (Hole-filled, not “holy.”) The plants are victims of countless bug dinners, their lovely shapes marred by the hungry growth of creatures.
As Dillard considers the realities of consumed, and consuming, creatures in all their glory, she turns again to questions of theodicy, beauty, and mystery. How can we say this world is beautiful or glorious, when it’s filled with so much pain and suffering? How do we reckon with the fact that so many creatures prey on other creatures—including innocent, vulnerable, and fragile creatures?
“Parasitism: this itch, this gasp in the lung, this coiled worm in the gut, hatching egg in the sinew, warble-hole in the hide—is a sort of rent, paid by all creatures who live in the real world with us now. … It is the thorn in the flesh of the world, another sign, if any be needed, that the world is actual and fringed, pierced here and there, and through and through, with the toothed conditions of time and the mysterious, coiled spring of death.”
It is extraordinary how many animals serve as “host” to a parasite for their entire lives. It’s an uneasy truth to grapple with, and Dillard is staring at it with clear-eyed concern here. As she does in her chapter on “Fecundity,” Dillard pushes us to wrestle with those aspects of the natural world we would rather overlook.
It is also important, however, to contrast parasitism with mutualism. We get to live in a world with both, and Dillard doesn’t spend much time on mutualism in this chapter. In case you aren’t familiar with the term: “mutualism” refers to species relationships in which one creature has needs that are perfectly met and balanced by another creature’s needs. This is true of bees and flowers, clownfish and anemone, gut bacteria and humans (among countless other examples!). A mutualist relationship is one of reciprocal service, of a natural harmony that leaves each creature better off than they would be otherwise.
The fact that we live in a world in which various parasitic wasp varieties prey on all the other bugs isn’t all that surprising to me. It feels gruesome and expected; perhaps it feels expected because it is gruesome. The fact that we live in a world in which two creatures can unwittingly yet perfectly serve each others’ needs, on the other hand, is extraordinary. It is stunning. It doesn’t cancel out the evils of parasitism. But it reminds me that there is, indeed, a bigger picture to consider.
Perhaps the scarred, worn nature of reality isn’t the thing that should shock us. Perhaps the real shock is how many people tend to each other’s scars.
questions
What do you think of Dillard’s explorations of parasitism and our “old and frayed” world in this chapter? What here surprised or challenged you? What, if anything, encouraged you?
How do you think we should grapple with the realities of parasitism and predation in our world? How do we balance that suffering with the good stuff, like the beauty of mutualism?
The outdoor goal for this week: Spend at least three to four hours outside (25 to 35 minutes per day!). In that time, consider the following:
What changes are you noticing, if you’re still in the season of late summer? Do you notice the “nibbled” and “scarred” realities that Dillard highlights in her work?
Where do you see new growth? Where do you see struggle?
news + essays
In defense of the wasps. (Even the parasitic ones!)
Tessa Carman has written a beautiful profile of Christina Rossetti: “Rossetti possessed what G.K. Chesterton called ‘the old humility’: She was ‘undoubting about the truth,’ firm in her faith in Christ and His Church, but doubtful of herself.”
In considering widespread loneliness and restlessness, Joey Hiles turns to Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America for answers: “Tocqueville believed that people would have to voluntarily rethread themselves to others, tying new knots that would make it more difficult for them to continue splintering away from each other.”
Jennifer Frey considers the lifelong call to learning, the Lyceum Movement!, and “The Liberating Arts” for the Wall Street Journal.
A thoughtful article on the history, meaning, and resurgence of the American Chestnut.
Nathan Beacom with excellent insights re: the questions we’ve been asking as we read Dillard’s work: “Yes, to love and to desire is to be disappointed and to suffer, and to love the wrong things too much is enough to eventually destroy us. No earthly thing on its own can constitute a worthy object of our ultimate hope or our final love. At the same time, we continue to sense that there is a deep harmony between our hearts and the world, and perhaps glimpse the work of a great composer. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, concludes a famous poem—in which he frets over the world’s brokenness and the loss of his most beloved friend—with well-known lines that utter a truth more profound than the dour pessimism of Schopenhauer: it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”
books
Brooks Lamb’s book Love for the Land is a beautiful book on agriculture, farming, stewardship, and place. I highly recommend it. Hoping to put together a Q&A with Brooks soon, so that you can learn more about his project.
In the meantime, check out this op-ed he wrote for Modern Farmer!
food, etc.
Focaccia bread with caramelized onions, pears, and blue cheese.
We are overrun with grapes—and so we are making grape juice and grape jelly!
It is time for mulled cider, yes?
a final note
I’ve felt very guilty over my delays in writing a new post for Granola over the last couple weeks. I am so sorry. I have started this post at least five different times. Each time, in the busyness of a new school year, interruptions have prevented me from getting very far—let alone finishing.
Being a young mom and a writer at the same time has never been easy. Now that my kids are older, it’s actually tougher to write than it was when they were babies. (They don’t nap anymore!) I often wrestle with guilt over the emails I should read, the essays I need to edit, and the Substack posts yet to publish. I feel very nibbled. Or, as Bilbo Baggins puts it, “I feel like butter scraped over too much bread.”
Some of this is just human existence. Some of it is also the result of trying to pretend that I don’t live in a world with limited resources, energy, and time. I can only do so much and be so much. I spend a lot of time apologizing for my tardiness—for the times when I don’t publish things as quickly as I intended, the times when I don’t get out a weekly newsletter.
So this is me apologizing for not sending out the weekly book club emails, as promised. That’s on me. I didn’t follow through on what I promised, and I don’t want to be that person. But I also have realized that you, like me, probably can’t always accomplish all the things you intend to, in the time you expect to accomplish them. My publication schedule is not nearly as tidy or structured as my perfectionist brain might like. But I will continue to post however and whenever I can.
I sincerely doubt, Gracy, that there could be anyone who recognizes the insight and passion of your writing--and thus subscribed to this substack--who WOULDN'T also recognize that your humaneness, and human-ness, is part of makes your writing so valuable! Keep up your good work, at whatever pace with whatever (ir)regularity; it's an inspiration to all the rest of us whose reach also sometimes exceeds our grasp!
Gracy, I haven't been able to read along with Pilgrim as I'd hoped to -- the bits and pieces I've read have been so good, but sometimes I can't get to them. So I am so sorry for that, that I've not fully appreciated the work you've done, the gift you've offered -- but I've saved these posts, and hope to go back to read them more carefully, and meanwhile, I appreciate so much that you are doing the work when you can, how you can. Thank you for that!