“Find a bit of beauty in the world today. Share it. If you can’t find it, create it. Some days this may be hard to do.” –Lisa Bonchek Adams
There have been many hard things going on in our world, and I truly love the quote above, and it rings so true. A bit of beauty can lift us from the mundane, from the drudgery, from the crueler aspects of living. What sweet relief.
I also love Annie Dillard, a great teacher in learning to see.In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Dillard writes about how, as a young child, she would hide a penny in the roots of a sycamore or a gap in the sidewalk, then draw arrows in chalk toward it, sure that discovering the copper coin would make someone’s day. Years later she could see powerful symbolism in that innocent expectation. Below is an insightful paragraph from Dillard:
There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But—and this is the point—who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kid paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.
I cannot believe Mother’s Day is already upon us. All mothers and mother figures deserve to be celebrated on Sunday. Mothers that have been blessed with babies; mothers who’s babies left too soon; mothers who are waiting to meet their special baby; mothers who are yearning to become a mom; fur moms; and those who are mother figures. We need all types of mothers to help us through this life. The journey towards motherhood is not always freshly paved. The path towards parenthood, for us, was filled with unexpected twists and turns, which made for a long and complicated journey. I feel so fortunate to be a mom to our little human and our beloved fur girl, and I am very grateful for this season together, which I never take for granted. So wherever you are in your journey, you are worthy of every celebration held in your honor. Happy Mother’s Day, to every type of mama out there!
“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.” — Maya Angelou
Below is Alex and I together on Mother’s Day together, and it is difficult to believe it is our seventh one together!
We recently had our spring break together, where we all had some time off together from work and school! It has been a crazy first quarter of the year, for sure, and we welcomed some time away together. We have always loved going to the beach, with Victory, a place of refuge, before Alex was born during the off season. So, we decided to go to Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach with our girls! We had so much fun together! Alex’s only complaint was that Funland was not open for the season, yet! Doug and Alex picked out a parrot kite, which they successfully flew pretty high, over the ocean!
We made it back home for Easter, and Alex made some beautiful eggs, which she loved creating! Alex and Victory had an Easter egg hunt left by the Easter Bunny, one of Alex’s favorite things she looks forward to on Easter! On Easter day, we went to an Orioles baseball game, which was fun, and the Cincinnati Reds won, to Doug’s delight!
We also received some good news, while we were away, about Victory’s recent health issue, which we are so grateful for. She is on a new medicine, and we are waiting to see how she responds.
It was nice to have some time off together and to be able to spend time together! A few photos of our time away together are shown below!
Happy Friday! We were on spring break last week! A few weekends ago, we took Alex and Victory to Pups in the Park at the Nationals! This was our ninth time attending Pups in the Park at the Nationals with Victory, and our third time attending with both Alex and Victory! (You can view our previous trips to Pups in the Park: here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)
We had really nice weather for the game–it was a little overcast with really great temperatures, perfect for Victory! This is the second Pups in the Park game that Alex will remember, as she does not remember first going in 2019, prior to COVID, as she had just turned one. Alex and Victory got to meet Screech for the first time at this game! Victory was a little trooper and had fun as well. We all had a great time!
Below are several photos from our visit! We hope to return for another Pups in the Park game again this fall with our girls!
In the final years of his long life, which encompassed world wars and assassinations and numerous terrors, the great cellist and human rights advocate Pablo Casals urged humanity to “make this world worthy of its children.” What is the worth of children, what are our responsibilities to them (when we do choose to have them, for it is also an act of courage and responsibility to choose not to), and what does it mean to raise a child with the dignity of being an unrepeatable miracle of atoms that have never before constellated and will never again constellate in that exact way?
A century ago, perched between two worlds and two World Wars, the Lebanese-American poet, painter, and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) addressed these elemental questions in a short passage from The Prophet, shown below, which I love.
When a young mother with a newborn baby on her chest asks for advice on children and parenting, Gibran responds:
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Our beloved Hound About that we have used for over 13 years, with both Biscuit and Victory, is no longer working properly, which is a bummer. We got such good use out of it, and we kept it together in the final years with replacement parts, we kept on hand, and new wheels, but since the Hound About and its parts are not made any longer, we had to find a new option for our fur girl, Victory! After doing some research, we opted for the Pet Rover, and we got this model, Alex picked the yellow color because she liked the look of a taxi!
Victory absolutely loves her Pet Rover, and it has been a great substitute to our former Hound About, which we hold wonderful memories of our furry family members! Victory is thoroughly enjoying her rides in her Pet Rover, since the weather is getting a bit warmer, finally, which has been a great morale boost for her! Alex loves pushing the Pet Rover as well, and Victory loves her new wheels and rides in the fresh airl!
Below is a video of our beloved fur girl out for her evening ride!
I love this poem, shown below, by Marge Piercy. It seems so timely. For me, this poem, celebrates people who find meaning and purpose in formidable, necessary work done with patience and dedication.
To Be of Use
by Marge Piercy
The people I love best jump into work head first without dallying in the shadows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.
This post is a little late, but last year, I made a book of Alex’s Kindergarten artwork. I had saved so much of her artwork, from Kindergarten, and I wanted to find a way to save it without holding onto every piece of her artwork, if you know what I mean. So, I photographed and edited the pieces that I wanted to save, to include in this book. I made a 60 page book of all of her Kindergarten artwork, approximately 120 pieces of her artwork, via OnceUpon, and I selected the matte paper option. The book turned out well, it is simple in design, and not as expensive to print as compared to other places where you can make books.
The best part is—I printed one of these books for Alex, and she loves looking at her art via this book, and it is also a way to encourage her to keep making her beautiful art, which she loves to make, daily—she is very creative! The arts are really important, and we hope to keep fostering this love within Alex. I hope to continue to make yearly books of her artwork as a way of preserving her artworks! Here are Alex’s previous artwork books, which you can view here and here. I am still making our family yearbooks, and I am a few years behind due to my recently released book, so I will have to find a way to catch up, as these books are so meaningful to have and to share with your family!
I had the pleasure of speaking with my beloved friend, Sy Montgomery, a naturalist, documentary scriptwriter, and author of 38 acclaimed books of nonfiction for adults and children, including the National Book Award Finalist The Soul of an Octopus and the memoir The Good Good Pig,Of Time and Turtles, both New York Times bestsellers. She is the recipient of numerous honors—including lifetime achievement awards from The Humane Society and the New England Booksellers Association. Sy gives a voice and amazing insight into many types of animals. Her adventurous spirit and poetic prose prompted The Boston Globe to describe her as “part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson.” She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, border collie named Thurber, and three baby wood turtles she is raising, with a permit from the state, for release into the wild in the spring.
Sy and I, fortunately, crossed paths while I was finishing my book, Abandoned: Chronicling the Journeys of Once-Forsaken Dogs, and my life has been greatly enriched. My daughter, Alex, shares Sy’s great love and admiration for animals, and they have become recent pen pals, which she loves, along with reading Sy’s children’s books—Alex absolutely loves Becoming a Good Creature!
“Go out into the world where your heart calls you. The blessing will come, I promise you that. I wish for you the insight to recognize the blessings as such, and sometimes it is hard. But you’ll know it’s a blessing if you are enriched and transformed by the experience. So be ready. There are great souls and teachers everywhere. It’s your job to recognize them.” –Sy Montgomery
KATHERINE CARVER: How do your ideas for your books come to you?
SY MONTGOMERY: It really varies. For example, I was visiting India writing a book on man eating tigers, and I saw pink dolphins in the Ganges, and that inspired me to find out more about the pink dolphins in the Amazon. Years later, while giving a talk about that book at the Roger Williams Park Zoo located in Rhode Island, my host there told me about her research studying Matschie’s tree kangaroos in Papua New Guinea—and a few years later, I would go there with her to write a book about her work. Complete serendipity!
The Soul of an Octopus explores the philosophical mystery of consciousness. For four decades, I’d been writing about how smart animals are and that they do indeed think, feel, and know. However, it was not until 2011, when I met Athena, a Giant Pacific Octopus, that I found the way to talk about consciousness in animals—through experiencing friendships with animals so different from us, you’d have to go to outer space to find someone more alien. Octopuses and humans are separated by half a billion years of evolution. We breathe air; they breathe water; we have bones; they have none; they change color and shape, taste with all their skin, possess venom, shoot ink, and pour their baggy, boneless bodies through tiny openings. And yet, I found, you can make friends with an octopus, who is very clearly a conscious being, just like we are conscious.
In 2023, Of Time and Turtles, was published. It was conceived as a companion to The Soul of an Octopus—it tackles the other great mystery of philosophy besides consciousness, and that is time. Who better to explore time with than turtles, who arose at the time of the dinosaurs and live to such a great age? And, as it turned out, the pandemic was a great teacher of time—and working during that time at a turtle rescue, helping to mend the broken shells of turtles, was a healing balm.
KATHERINE CARVER: How did you get so interested in studying animals in your work?
SY MONTGOMERY: I told my parents, when I was young, that I thought I was a horse, and I then realized I was a dog! I completely felt I had an animal’s soul. I was born in 1958 and, back then, a woman could be: a stewardess, a nurse, or a teacher—not a jungle explorer. I thought initially, I might be a veterinarian. However, when I started to read, I realized that writing could be a vehicle to helping animals, too. I wanted to show people these wonderful animals so they would fall in love with them as I did. Ultimately, the deeper the affection for the natural world can lead to action.
KATHERINE CARVER: Do you have any rituals or practices that helps you get into the flow of your writing?
SY MONTGOMERY: What helps me get into the flow of writing is just being in my office, which is filled with posters, books, and memorabilia. I just love my office, so it affords me a great environment for me to write. My dog, Thurber, is always close by as well, which adds warmth to my environment.
When I am writing, and not promoting a book, I do not answer the phone in the morning; I check my email once in the morning; and I do not text. My husband, Howard Mansfield, is also a writer and, he also works from home, and we have separate offices in different parts of the house, and we do not bother each other, but I am aware of his presence, which is wonderful. I met my husband at Syracuse University, while we were college students and we both worked on the student newspaper!
Additionally, you must make the writing happen, even during those times, that you do not always feel like writing. There was a time in my life, where I experienced great loss for a period; however, when I was around tree kangaroos on the expedition to the cloud forests in Papua, New Guinea, something lifted and changed. I wrote about this in my memoir How to be a Good Creature and its children’s book companion, Becoming a Good Creature. One thing this taught me is that even when you feel despair, you can trust that something wonderful may be waiting to happen right around the corner.
KATHERINE CARVER: You exude so much positivity, has this always been the case?
SY MONTGOMERY: I believe it is innate, the way I am. As a young child, I moved around a lot; my dad was a POW, and it helped to shape my perspective that it is great to wake up and be free! My husband and I both work for ourselves and work from our home, we live on eight acres of beautiful land in a wonderful town, and we are truly happy. We do not need a bunch of stuff; I wake up each morning and tell my husband I love him so much, along with our dog, Thurber, and then I make us all a great breakfast. Next, we walk the dog, and I get to spend the remainder of the day writing about animals! I could not be happier!
SY MONTGOMERY: This fall, I have a children’s book that will be released, which is illustrated by Matt Patterson about our friend, Fire Chief, a 42 pound wild snapping turtle; I am working with Matt on another picture book about caterpillars; I am currently writing essays to accompany a new edition of National Geographic’s Photo Ark book of Joel Sartore’s photographs of animals; and I am writing a book on last summer’s scuba expedition studying giant oceanic manta rays with researcher Michel Guerrero.
KATHERINE CARVER: What are you most proud of?
SY MONTGOMERY: My husband—Howard Mansfield’s work! He is really the writer in the family! He is really the writer in the family!
In terms of my own work, I feel proud that, working alongside many, many others—scientists, authors, artists, lawyers, policy makers—we are starting to move the needle to return to what our kind has known for millennia: that animals think, feel, and know—and deserve not only our respect, but our awe in their presence.
KATHERINE CARVER: What advice do you have for creative people?
SY MONTGOMERY: When you cannot believe in yourself, believe in your teachers and inspiration. And do the work and then attend to your feelings about yourself. Most of all, focus on what you love.
KATHERINE CARVER: Do you have a favorite mantra or quote that you live by?
SY MONTGOMERY: This is attributed to the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus: “The universe is alive, and has fire in it, and is full of gods.” Which means, to me, that our world is incandescent with minds both like and unlike our own—and all of them are holy.
This past weekend Wonderland Books, located in Bethesda, Maryland, is hosted a book event for my recently released book, ABANDONED: Chronicling the Journeys of Once-Forsaken Dogs! Four dogs that are included ABANDONED attended: Denny, Minnie, Clooney, and Dreyfuss! It was so wonderful to see these dogs in person, along with there humans, after so much time has passed since starting this project! Additionally, what made this book event unique, is that it included four adoptable dogs via Forever Changed Animal Rescue, complimenting the mission of ABANDONED: raising awareness of the plight of dogs in need, while illustrating the positive impacts of dog rescue for both humans and dogs alike. Importantly, all of the dogs received adoption applications, which is so great! A few images from the book event are shown below!
if you have not ordered your copy of ABANDONED, I hope you will consider ordering ABANDONED today! Additionally, ABANDONED will also make a great Holiday gift for friends and family, especially those who love dogs—especially shelter and rescue dogs! Many thanks for your support!
biscuit's space | The blog of photographer Katherine Carver 