Blue Days & Copper Pennies

& Joanne Proulx on changing your perspective—literally

Hi friend,

I’ve been back in chemo this week. I was talking to a friend yesterday morning, and I described the experience as feeling like a hangover, though rather than from alcohol, it’s like you’ve had one too many shots of rat poison. Going from the wondrous whirlwind of the book launch and the tour, where I was in motion in so many senses, to this forced stasis was a rude return to normalcy. It’s left me feeling kind of blue.

During weeks like these, I summon the words of my late friend Lisa Bonchek Adams: “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.” My bit of beauty was stumbling across a nest of what appear (to my untrained eye) to be cardinal’s eggs in my garden bed, among a vibrant stand of alliums.

I shared about this in Notes the other day. I said that it reminded me of the writer Annie Dillard, one of my great teachers in learning to see. In a much anthologized chapter from 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. I’ll share a full paragraph of hers here, ripe as it is with insight:

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.

When I wrote about this in Notes, someone responded with this: “An example of a ‘glimmer’—the opposite of a trigger. Moments of joy we come across in our everyday lives.” Yes, exactly. A glimmer. A tiny gem. A bit of beauty that lifts us from the mundane, from the drudgery, from the crueler aspects of living. What sweet relief.

I also wrote about my pups, and how they love to lie in our garden beds, but to my surprise, they’ve given the nest a wide berth. Rather than tromping over the nest or snapping up the eggs as a little snack, they seemed almost protective. Someone chimed in with this: “Doesn’t it make you wonder how we can possibly ever forget the miracle that life is. Yet, at times, we do.” Someone else added this: “A reminder that animals don’t automatically destroy what is beautiful or edible just because it’s there or because they can. This deep reverence for life is instinct I think.”

And now suddenly I’m realizing a lovely rhyme, which is that I wrote in the “On Seeing” chapter of The Book of Alchemy about how Annie Dillard and my dogs both teach me to slow down, to be present, to pay attention to the smallest things—like this clutch of cardinal’s eggs. I love the idea of glimmers, of pennies. It’s not like finding a winning lottery ticket; seeking out a bit of beauty isn’t a pie-in-the-sky miracle that will change everything. It isn’t a cure for the condition of being human. But it’s something. Here I think of the kaleidoscope metaphor. It shifts the barrel, and the light falls differently.

Realizing you have the power to narrow or widen the aperture, even slightly, is powerful. Maybe you can’t change your situation, but you can reframe it. You can shift your perspective, which the nest did for me, quite literally. At one point, I got down on my hands and knees to study the dappled shells, to wonder at the tidy mess of the nest. From there, I peered up, and the sky looked different from that vantage—the heavenly dome almost cradling the earth—and I felt compelled to snap this photo:

When I’m feeling blue, it’s so easy for me to get stuck in my head, locked in one way of seeing. But I’m sharing all this as a reminder to myself—and maybe to you—that there’s immense value in looking at things from a different vantage, which is exactly what today’s prompt asks us to do. From the “On Seeing” chapter in The Book of Alchemy, it’s called “Look Down, Get Low, Think Small” by

Joanne Proulx

. May it twist the cylinder. May the light fall differently. May you find a bit of beauty in the world today—a glimmer, a copper penny—even if this feels hard to do.

Suleika

Some Items of Note—

• Mark your calendar! We’ve scheduled our next meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers, for next Sunday, May 25 from 1-2 pm ET, with Carmen Radley hosting this month. It’s the warmest, most grounding and generative hour—I hope you can join us!

• Last week I announced the creation of the Alchemy Fund for Girls Write Now, an organization that supports young writers through workshops, mentorship, and community. I invited this beloved community to join me in donating, and the next day, I got the sweetest note of gratitude from the organization—they were wowed by your response. I’d love to keep growing the fund to support the program’s brilliant mentee writers. So if you have the means, I’d be so grateful if you would join me in donating to the Alchemy Fund!

• There’s still some Alchemy Tour merch available—the silk scarf and baseball cap sold out in a snap, but the Wonder sweatshirt and the Book of Alchemy tote are still available. You can get yours at the Alchemy Shop!

Prompt 338. Look Down, Get Low, Think Small by Joanne Proulx

Excerpted from the “On Seeing” chapter in The Book of Alchemy

One summer I was in a horrible boating accident that put me in a wheelchair for months. It was over fifteen years ago now and, perhaps oddly, what’s stuck with me most from that time is how the slightest drop in elevation changed everything. Two feet down, I lived in a landscape of crotches, eye to eye with first graders, my face a licking post for the tongues of tall dogs.

During the long, unsettling early days of Covid, I had a similar shift in perspective. With cities shut down, theaters shuttered, and friendships cordoned off, I retreated to our family’s cabin in the wilds of Ontario, Canada, where I began spending long hours in the forest. As a child I’d collected its stones, mosses, and mushrooms, built lush mini-worlds in shoeboxes, populated them with painted acorn people.

This time I took model-train people into the forest and got back down on my knees. Stuck a 1/64th-­ scale woman in a yellow dress into a thatch of broom moss and took her picture. Delightful. But soon I left the tiny people behind and let the forest floor tell its own story. Low down, in the knit of yesterday’s pine needles, everywhere I looked, staggering beauty, so easy to miss while standing. Stumps like mossy castles, bright orange sea jellies on the bellies of fallen logs, puddles that held the whole sky. I swooned at the mushrooms. Their tininess. The whimsy of their caps. The spring of them in my hand, like rubber spun from silk. How they shot up overnight, untethered from the creep of the human clock. Soon I was in love with thousand-­ year-­ old lichens. Took videos of streams and cricks so I could listen to their babble when I left them behind.

I once walked through the world with such certitude, convinced by what lay before me. Now I know reality comes in layers, complex and delicious. Crawling around the forest floor has slowed me down, brought me closer to the earth, and made me somehow braver. How can our world be so scary when there’s more beauty in a square foot of forest, more wisdom, than we’d expect in an acre? Humbled, heart opened, desirous, now when I step outside I look down, get low, think small.

Your prompt for the week:

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
                       —Mary Oliver

Climb a ladder. Or crawl across the kitchen floor. Drop to your knees in the forest, the garden, the guest room. Tell us what astonishes you about life at a different level.

Today’s Contributor—

Joanne Proulx is a writer and photographer whose critically acclaimed debut novel, Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet, won Canada’s Sunburst Award for Fantastic Fiction. Her second novel, We All Love the Beautiful Girls, was named one of a hundred best books by The Globe and Mail in 2017. She’s currently working on her third novel, There Will Be Swimming. A graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, Joanne lives, writes, and teaches in Ottawa, Canada.

Praise for The Book of Alchemy

“An extraordinary collection of wisdom. The Book of Alchemy is a springboard to new ideas, new insights, and new identities.” —Adam Grant, author of Think Again

“The Book of Alchemy proves on every page that a creative response can be found in every moment of life—regardless of what is happening in the world. It also demonstrates that we can be more creative together than we could ever be alone. I recommend it to every dreamer, with the highest respect and joy.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love

“Beyond her brilliance as a writer, Suleika Jaouad’s greatest offering to the world is her brilliance of generosity, her curiosity, her seeking heart and mind. The Book of Alchemy is an extension and expansion of these gifts.” —Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There’s Always This Year

“Brilliant. Gentle. Encouraging. This book is the perfect mix of incandescent wisdom and kick-in-the-pants motivation to start your own creative journey.” —Kate Bowler, author of Everything Happens for a Reason