Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Nature Girl

My fondest childhood memories are of times spent with my parents and grandparents at what we called "the farm." Located in northern Vermont on 100 acres of wooded land, the "farm" was my grandfather's hunting retreat -- a ramshackle house with a front porch, outhouse, gas lamps, and a few bedrooms, one of which had a triple-decker bunkbed. In the kitchen was an enormous black cookstove in which my greataunt could bake her mouthwatering strawberry-rhubarb pies. Little wonder that my brother and cousins and I adored the place.

For me, one of the best things about the farm was the abundance of wildlife. We'd scrutinize the way the porcupines gnawed at the screen door because they liked the salt from our hands; the beaver that made his dam down the dirt road in a small pond; and the few trout that swam lazily in the abandoned well. Bear scat would appear now and then on the small patch of lawn, and we'd see the bears themselves off in the distance crossing the power line in search of ripe berries. Living among nature I felt whole, a feeling that would disipate little by little as we drove back to our home in Massachusetts.

Flash forward to today, to Maine, the state I've happily inhabited for the past twenty-five years. Here I can be a nature girl to my heart's content. I know that not everyone enjoys spotting a coyote at the neighbor's feeder, or watching as a moose wanders out from the bog into the middle of the street, but to me these indications that we share our world with more creatures than our pets is somehow redemptive. It's not all about me, or twitter entries, or how many calories I burn on the eliptical. There is a bigger world out there, a world that expands our senses and reawakens the same awe we felt as children. Ignore it, and you're likely to suffer what experts are now calling "nature-deficit disorder."

It's not surprising that my love of nature leads me to include the natural world in my mysteries. That wasn't too difficult in the first book (A House to Die For,) which, after all, took place in Maine. But the second in the Darby Farr Mystery Series, Killer Listing, is set on the Gulf Coast
of Florida. Luckily I have spent some wonderful times watching manatees, herons, dolphins, and even 'gators in the Sunshine State, so I was able to create a rich setting that included nature for my heroine. (The photo of my kids spotting one of the state's famous reptiles is from a camping trip in the Everglades years ago.) As to the diversity of plant life in Florida, I turned to several guidebooks (and, yes, the Internet) to help me write about bristlecone pines and fan palms, and my personal favorite -- the strangler fig.

Just as I cannot imagine my life without nature, I can't imagine my mysteries without it. What about you? Do you believe in the transformative power of the natural world, and do you include it in your books?

11 comments:

Sue Ann Jaffarian said...

What a lovely reminder for those of us who live in congested cities. As someone who lived in Maine for a number of years in my twenties, I know what you mean. Nature and animals were all around and spotting wild creatures very common. You're post is also a reminder that it is something that is missing in my books. Even in the middle of Los Angeles I see squirrels and opossums, or even spot whales off the coast, but never mention them in my books.

Vicki Doudera said...

Sue Ann, thanks for your comment. Whales -- how spectacular.
BTW loved your post yesterday. Dying to know what book it was...

Darrell James said...

Vicki- I understand the idea of nature being redemptive. Our place in Tucson avoids us the opportunity to hike the mountains and canyons. Occassionally a coyote or bobcat or family of javalinas (wild pigs) will venture past our backyard. Hawks patrol the skies. Some of our creatures are a little... well... creepy! Scorpians, gila monsters... I love tham all.

Keith Raffel said...

Vicki, in my first book I had some elgaic paragraphs about Silicon Valley -- which used to be known as the Valley of Heart's Delight before the engineers and MBAs moved in. We're missing something, for sure.

Sue Ann, I didn't realize you were around in the '20s in Maine or anywere else. You look marvelous.

Vicki Doudera said...

Darrell, the southwest is so awesome and I know we'll be out there in the future as my husband loves it. I'm OK with creepy (have a snake in KILLER LISTING) so perhaps I'll need to set a DARBY in Arizona ...

Keith, there's a new book coming out (The Nature Principle) that argues that the more high tech we become, the more we need nature. I imagine the Valley of Heart's Delight was a pretty incredible place.

Julia Buckley said...

Great post! We also had a "farm" in my family--20 acres in wooded Michigan that my great-grandfather purchased with a settlement he received when he was injured working on the railroad. This helped him through the Depression, since he and his daughter (my grandmother) were basically self-sustaining with their own cow and vegetable garden.

Now it's just 20 beautiful wooded acres and a tiny house. I haven't been there in a year, but I feel a real longing to go back every spring.

G.M. Malliet said...

Vicki - you live in one of my favorite spots on earth. Lucky you! Maine can be as remote as one likes, which is one of the great things about it.

Alan Orloff said...

Oddly, in my first two books, there are climactic scenes that take place in the woods. Coincidentally (?), I look out on a patch of woods from the room where I write. (Lately, we've been visited by an owl, which is pretty cool.)

Kathleen Ernst said...

I love reading books with a strong sense of the natural landscape, and I try to provide that same sense of place in my own work. When Chloe is overwhelmed with problems, taking a deep breath and pausing to enjoy southern Wisconsin's prairie landscape helps a lot. (For me too, actually!)

Vicki Doudera said...

Julia -- how cool. And to think it was an actual self-sustaining farm at one point. Does your family still own the acreage?

Gin - Maine's remoteness is only a pain when I decide to fly somewhere!

Alan -- Could that owl be your muse? Whooooo else could it be?

Kathleen, I keep wishing for more hours in the day to read everybody's books. I would enjoy reading about the prairie since it is so different from my landscape here.

Alice Loweecey said...

I'm an inner-city gal who moved to the 'burbs when I got married so I could see a patch of grass bigger than a postage stamp. My current series takes place in a city as well, but another book of mine is all about grass and trees and nature. IRL, I'm all about gardening and woods and critters. *ponders a character who is too*