Since I published a book about beavers two years ago, I’ve heard from dozens, maybe hundreds, of readers with their own beaver experiences to share. This is a wonderful perk of authorhood: When you tell your own story, you attract others. I’ve gotten emails from folks who have hand-fed blackberries to wild beavers, who have seen beavers build dams entirely of rock, who have watched beavers frolic like seals in the Baltic Sea. Just last month I received the unsolicited memoir of a guy who once resuscitated a drowning beaver. Yes, mouth-to-mouth.
Most writers, I’m sure, get some version of this correspondence. Still, there’s something about beavers — their human-like family structures, their penchant for construction — that seems to foster personal connection. They enter lives in unexpected ways. They channel joy and grief. Today, I want to relate one such saga, courtesy of a woman named Brittany. I’ll warn you that Brittany’s story is about illness and death. It’s also about life and love. And beavers. It’s definitely about beavers.
To begin at the beginning: Brittany grew up in Cuba, New York, a small town near Buffalo, the middle of three children. Her younger brother, Zach, was the sort of troubled, likable smartass we all knew in high school — quick with a joke, surrounded by friends, short-fused, prone to starting bar fights. His blend of charisma and anger reminded Brittany of Tony Soprano. “I don’t know if there was a funnier person,” she told me. “He was also a bastard.” He organized riotous backyard wrestling matches and doted on his beagle, Ralphie; he also drank away his money and got arrested the night of Brittany’s bachelorette party. “One time I said something that pissed him off,” she recalled, “and he took a full plate of lasagna and threw it at the Christmas tree.”
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This week, as protesters have taken to the streets to demand justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black people murdered at the hands of the police, local bail funds have been inundated with donations. One of my favorite tweets calling for people to take action:
An earlier version of that sentiment appealed to the science nerds out there:
If you don’t know the story of HeLa cells, here’s the cliffs notes version, detailed in Rebecca Skloot’s excellent book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: in 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a black woman, went to the Johns Hopkins medical center for cervical cancer treatment. Researchers took a biopsy from a tumor and discovered that her cells were unusually hearty, so they began culturing those cells and using them in medical experiments.
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The cell phone rang at 9:21 p.m. on a weekday.
I almost didn’t answer. Unfamiliar number. Late in the evening. Probably an automated voice expressing urgency about the viability of my automobile insurance—never mind that I don’t own a car.
But then: Why not? You never know.
So I answered.
And I heard the magic word: “Siena.”
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My work has become opening digital files to search for signs of life. The biggest thing I do, the midday ritual of checking emails. Refresh, refresh.
Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!
I’m a saint.
I miss you, Ms. Dusto.
I’m dad, away on business.
Can I please have an extension? This morning we got my Auntie’s ashes, from Covid-19.
I’m a monster.
Please know these parts of a wave, how to use the wave speed equation to solve for unknowns. Know something about resonance and octaves. Choose from A through D, or all that apply.
Your education is important.
A big black bird was perched up on the corner of a house, one of the nice, big old houses in my neighborhood.
“Nice,” “big,” and “old” is about as precise as I can get on architecture. But I can nail down that bird. It was an American crow. It called, a single caw! Its friend, from off to my left, cawed back. Caw. Caw! Caw. Caw! The friend flew over, they chatted some more, and it flew off again. I continued on my Saturday morning walk.
My world has shrunk to my 650-square-foot apartment, my parents’ house one afternoon a week, and long, leisurely walks in my neighborhood and theirs. I’ve always liked walking, and now the walks are the highlight of my day. I used to use walking as a form of transportation. I always knew, if I ran out of steam, I could get on a bus or call a Lyft. Now there’s nowhere to go and I’m not willing to be in confined spaces with other people. My walks are smaller, closer to home, always planned to be round trips.
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In March, when the boys and I started walking at the beach every morning, I decided I would re-learn the names of shorebirds. Not the gulls—even the professor who originally taught me the names of shorebirds said not to worry too much about gulls. But the other ones, the ones with the w’s in their names. The curlew, the whimbrel, the willet, the godwit.
Some of them have curved beaks, some of them have straight beaks, some of them have cinnamon wings, some of them have tell-tale calls. I don’t really remember how to memorize things like this anymore, so I try to use a combination of mnemonics and mental self-flagellation.
I learn that the marbled godwit is one of the bigger shorebirds, its straight bill has a slight upward tilt toward the end. It spends summers in the northern Great Plains and comes to the coast in the winter. The godwit is often seen with the long-billed curlew. Here we go: similar color to the godwit, but the bill curls down. That’s it, I think, curlew = curls down.
And then I remember the whimbrel. Its bill also curls down. True, its bill is not quite as dramatic as the as the long-billed curlew’s. But if the two species are not standing next to each other, what am I supposed to do? I wish they would skitter up on their thin legs and introduce themselves. Usually they are all skittering away from us.
Continue readingWe turned 10 this week, and instead of getting together for a gala, we wrote each other postcards, alone in our homes. It’s a very writerly way to celebrate. Thanks, pandemic.
Today we wrap up our week-long celebration with postcards from Sarah, Jenny, and Cameron.
Sarah Gilman
Dear 2010 Sarah G.—
First, you’re going to have a lot of weird dreams. Dreams where everything will be normal except your stress levels when people come closer than six feet to you. You will become hyper aware of where everyone’s hands are at all times, and of how often they touch their faces. You will deeply miss traveling, the desert, rivers, your friends and family. But your backyard meadow will expand until it’s an entire continent. You will have conversations with the moon and Venus in the meadow at night while the dog pees, and you brush your teeth. You will feel an opening. Remember—when it comes—you must step through it. Even in pause, there is a future growing inside you.
–Love, 2020 Sarah G.
Read Sarah’s LWON posts–many of which include her own artwork which somehow merges words, drawing, and her own Sarah-self.
Jennifer Holland
Dear Self:
In general, OMG.
(I know, we hate “OMG,” but trust me, it works here.)
I could go on and on about the bizarre and terrifying trip you’ll be taking in a decade, but where’s the fun in giving it all away?Still, a few spoilers are in order.
1) You disliked George W. Bush, but just you wait. You will really, really miss him.
2) Buy Palladium, ZOOM, and yeast. (And T.P. Lots of T.P.)
3) Don’t get rid of all those ugly sweats from college. You will be wearing them to work.
4) Learn how to cook better. Your favorite restaurants? Let’s just say eating at home will be a thing.
5) Learn to love all your husband’s annoying habits. And you know that bathroom renovation he started? Get used to exposed pipes and the unique (rustic!) look of cement board.
6) You will go through periods of heavy panic and think the world is ending. IT MIGHT BE.
Sorry.
Good luck!
Love, ME
Read all of Jenny’s LWON posts. In one, she’s also talking her past self, this time encouraging her.
Cameron Walker
You got this. (Heart stick figure).
P.s. They ask you to join LWON! Say yes!
Read all of Cameron’s LWON posts here, one of which advises on the differences between baking power and baking soda and is surely useful today.
Happy Birthday to us!
Well, there it is. What we wish our 10-years-younger selves knew. Will we still be here in 10 years? Will the world still exist? What would you tell yourself in 2010? Let us know in the comments.