Stories grow from the seeds of words. When I think of reading, though, I think in terms of more than words on pages. When I think of the broader meaning of “reading,” my writing is enhanced by these abstract ways of applying the idea of reading.
To me, reading is reading nature, reading people, reading everything in my environment, using all my senses. This began in early childhood, when my parents and grandparents filled our homes with what they read in the outside world, with all the experiences we shared. They brought nature, art and music indoors so that we were constantly surrounded and enveloped in a lush, sensorial climate. When they read to me or I read to myself, I could better envision the descriptions through experience, and I felt the need to translate and share my feelings in my own ways. This was how my stories were born. Now I’m always writing as I walk, see, hear, smell, feel – in other words, as I read my world.
Below are some photos of bird nests and other bits of nature collected from around our garden, walks, and travel, and brought inside to decorate tabletops and mantel. Many pieces of our furniture and art have nature themes. Framed family photos of generations, including the house in Germany where my maternal grandfather was born, and handwritten letters, give me stories and voices that told them to me. My hope is that you will read the world, and that your children will read it with you so that they will write it for their children. Story seeds are everywhere.
Wren’s nest on mantel
Paper and tape became part of this nest.
Unhatched Bluebird eggs collected from several nests
Chimney Swift nest
Bluebird nest
Nest in fork of our fiddle leaf fig tree
Nest under glass dome on side table
Wax myrtle berries
Bird of Paradise painting
Shells collected at Sanibel and Captiva Islands, Florida
- Antique mirror frame with leaf detail
Partial wall of seven framed generations
1929 letter written in German from great-grandmother to my mother
- House in Germany where my maternal grandfather was born, and a group photo of his parents and siblings
Even my sox have bluebirds