Comment ça va?
A check-in
Dear friend,
How are you? I mean it! I think warmly of all of you sharing in my adventures in this little corner of Substack/the world, and I would love to hear what's up with you. It's been a rough month out there, and I hope you're all holding up and finding joy where you can.
It would be a treat for me if you feel like replying to this email or commenting on the post with answers to any or all of the below:
How are you doing? What's keeping you going?
What have you been reading and enjoying (or not) lately?
What's caught your eye (or other senses) lately?
What's something you've been curious about lately?
What's your favorite place, either of all time, or that you've spent time in recently?
As for me:
My growing sense of community on Substack has honestly been the highlight of my last few months, and has been pushing me to engage more deeply with my writing and my surroundings. It's been a lot of fun!
I'm currently enjoying The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, which is nicely seasonal and quirky, and recently enjoyed Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, which was the wrong season but hit all the right notes anyway.
I'm very in love with the sweetgum tree outside my office window. The red has been gradually deepening from the top down since October and I look at it every time I take a break.
Since my last post about the forts of Grenoble my curiosity has grown about the French Resistance in Grenoble and how they had to infiltrate their own city's institutions to undermine the Nazi occupation. I'd like to visit the local Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation de l'Isère to learn more.
I'm also curious where the rooks, who are beginning to congregate in the trees where their rookery was last spring, went during the summer.
My favorite place in my current sphere is the Jardin du Lautaret, an alpine botanic garden and field station where my lab group does field work, which I've written about a couple of times. Mountains, mist, plants, what's not to love?
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Note: I believe the Subscriber Chat feature on Substack web and app is designed for this kind of conversation, but I have yet to try it, and I know at least half of you are primarily email recipients, so let's see how this goes!
Thank you. Fascinating. How to respond well enough and remain succinct?!
1. I'm fine, even thriving, wch also means growing concerned by the various rabbit holes into wch I plunge, making me a gloriously "inefficient" writer;
2. Been reading the various novels of Harry Mulisch, in English translation, most recently The Discovery of Heaven. A metaphysical romp, this one, about humans and fate, but orbitting the traumas of the twentieth century, particularly those of the Netherlands and surrounding German occupation (the latter, difficult and compelling, a Mulisch specialty, for me, and not unrelated, perhaps, to how the French Resistance appears to have snuck up on you);
3. The warm layers of certain old Chicago restaurants and bars, and how they seem especially good at attracting and creating odd gatherings of people;
4. Notions of serendipity, fate, destiny, all more than a little out of fashion for more "rational" perspectives, and yet..... See 2 above;
5. Hummingbird Falls, in the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, a couple of hours west of where I grew up.
Hiya Anne! What a lovely check-in. I, too, am interested in the French Resistance (and the Dutch resistance - I have family who were a part of that). But here's my check-in:
1. Pas mal. Planning the expedition of wonder seems to be a terrific distraction, so much so that I'm having trouble narrowing down my ideas into something interesting and achievable. So many rabbit holes, so many ideas, so many possibilities! But if I don't have this to obsess over, I'll obsess over events of which I have no control. (Sheesh, that's an awkward sentence...)
2. I just started the novel All The Light We Cannot See and a memoir about going blind, The Country of the Blind. And I'm working my way through an ornithology text book (I got a scholarship to take Cornell Lab's online ornithology course).
3. Colors - not the autumnal colors of Oct/Nov in New England, but the shifting color of light from golden to something more cool that gives everything an almost steely patina. I'm fascinated by how light and atmosphere alter our perception of the colors we see, and that in turn affects our moods, what we feel.
4. What am I not ever curious about? But lately, like you, the Resistance during World War II. It's because of the book I'm reading (and the stack of similar novels to follow), and that lately my mum and her brother have been reminiscing about Oom Sim who was my Oma's friend and a fixture in their young lives in occupied Holland. He was also a member of the Dutch resistance. They don't know much about that part of his life, of course, since they were so young, but later as teens and adults they learned or pieced together information. But it has me thinking about how people coped during the occupation.
5. Right now, it's where I am. I'm enjoying my time here and trying to fill up my memory well for when I eventually move on. Soaking up the change in seasons, the sights and sounds of the wildlife, the crunch of dried lives and the promising smell of frost and snow.
This was fun, and I'm looking forward to reading other check-ins! xoSusannah