Grab the Lapels

Sunday Lowdown #275

Hello, again. Thank you for being here. After last week’s Sunday Lowdown, many of you seemed unsure what you would want from future Sunday Lowdown posts, but there was one person who was so confident about what I needed to do that she was sitting there waiting for me when I woke up Sunday morning after the post went live: Biscuit.

You’ve strayed too far from the original mission, she said. I stopped to think. The original mission was review books by women. That’s it. Since then, I’ve taken up some projects, such as interviewing authors, reading about fat women, and highlighting d/Deaf women. It’s so hard to have straightforward goals, even with projects. In the books about fat women, I’ve slowly accepted fat women who claim to love themselves but still diet and call it wellness. Your body is not a journey. It is not a pet project. Originally, that was not my goal. With books from the deaf community, I keep landing on titles by people who reject Deaf culture, or toe the line and mostly live in the hearing world. That was also not what I intended.

In the original Sunday Lowdown I covered my week at work, what I watched, books I finished, books in progress, and what I would read the following week. Also, back then, I was doing two reviews per week, but that isn’t sustainable.

So, how do I combine what I’m up to plus something more in line with the original goal of Grab the Lapels? Here is what I decided after Biscuit’s advice:

1) thoughts on interpreting (with confidentiality still in effect) go on my Interpreting blog. That space is really meant for people who have some context on what I am doing, so I won’t be giving loads of backstory and explanations, but if you are interested, you can follow me there. If you need clarification on something, ask! I’m happy to explain, but when I try to write about interpreting on this blog, I’m spending ages on context that people likely need but may not want to read. I do not blog there often, so it’s not a lot of “extra work” to follow me

2) I birthed a new blog for horror movies. I Screamed It for Free went live on May 18th, and the focus is specific: horror movies you can stream for free (mostly Tubi) that I then discuss with spoilers. I can’t wait for my friends to watch everything I do so we can yammer about it, and I noticed many of the movies on Tubi (free streaming) don’t have much content online, so I’m hoping to fill a niche for strangers. Besides, I already write all my thoughts about the Friday spooky movies in a notebook, so why not just type it and hit “publish”?

3) Each Sunday Lowdown will revolve around something inspired by a book. Basically, the book will serve as a launching place for what is happening with me that week in a bigger picture way. Here is what I mean — please read on for the actual Sunday Lowdown . . .

Nature had come into her own again and, little by little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long, tenacious fingers. The woods, always a menace even in the past, had triumphed in the end. They crowded, dark and uncontrolled, to the borders of the drive.

Rebecca (1938) — Daphne du Maurier

As I looked around our yard this week, that line — “nature had come into her own again” — popped into my head. We hadn’t mowed in two weeks, and all the spring rain not only made the grass grow like crazy, but it went to seed, too. For those of you who don’t have grass, this is when it looks like your house has been abandoned. I also did not pull out all the “leafy things” in the front garden as I did during the last two springs. Truly, I was yanking what I thought were weeds, but instead, by leaving it alone, allowed the flourishing of plants I hadn’t realized were there.

chick and hens
Mystery plant a lady on Facebook market place gave me
Lilies budding
A mum that planted itself??
Surprise plant I had obviously ripped up in the last two years
Granny’s Bonnets
The trumpet vine Biscuit gave me last year survived
The Rose of Sharon bushes are surviving all around the house
Nick protecting the baby trumpet vine, which I intend to have climb the old satellite dish pole
The watering cane hanging from the satellite pole
A bird made a home out of the watering can!
Then, the Facebook mystery plant finally opened
FINALLY having success with my African violets
And now another African violet is flowering

So, as you can see, in some ways, nature really has come into her own again at our house. I started thinking about other books that capture what it means to have soil and work it. The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman is about a widow with small children who attends a gardening class to help her with illustrations for a project. Yes, she falls in love with the instructor, but much of the novel is about planting seeds, working soil, and watching leaves come up.

Some suggestions for gardening/plant fiction I found online are Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, Eucalyptus by Murray Bail, The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, and Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes were suggestions. Have you read any of these? What about other “nature comes into her own” books? Most recently, the most garden-y thing I read was in the second creation story in the Bible because I’m enrolled in Old Testament for the next six weeks. For self-care, I’m re-starting Gardening Joy by Maria Failla, a nonfiction plant-lover book Biscuit got me for my birthday. It has activities in it that revolve around plants.

Published by Grab the Lapels

I'm a graduate of the MFA fiction writing program at the University of Notre Dame, which inspired me to follow along with trends in teaching, publishing, and reviewing. I also have an MA and BS from Central Michigan University. I used to teach composition, creative writing, and literature in higher education, then did a brief stint at a civic theater, followed by two years at a references desk at a public library. I'm now working toward my ASL Interpreter license.

37 comments

  1. Very nice blog Melanie. Sometimes on our journey we take roads that take us where we would not had journeyed on purpose but well worth the trip. I have proudly enjoyed observing your perfectly evolving journey. ❤️❤️~B

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  2. Nature may have come into her own, but it didn’t stay that way. A few hours of crossing mower blades and grass blades and we were back in Manderley. 🌱🌱🌱⚔️🏰

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    • And the dry grass clumps. Are we the shame of the neighborhood?? Then again, we’re, like, one of three houses that aren’t occupied by people with retired children who can mow their lawns for them.

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  3. So happy Biscuit helped you find your direction! Your iris is lovely. I have a yellow one that has bloomed recently and what a bright light it is! Also, so cool some birds used your watering can as a nest! And congrats on your beautiful violets!

    I have read Eucalyptus, very good, and Lolly Willowes, also very good. Another book you might want to look into is Camille Dungy’s Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. It’s most excellent!

    Have fun in your Old Testament class. The story of Job turned me into an atheist. And then there is the sex poem, I mean The Song of Solomon, which is beautiful and why is it in the Bible? 😀 When you step back from reading it as scripture there are so many great and weird stories in there.

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    • Oooh, I have Soil on my TBR. I’ll bump that one up.

      I just could not believe that I didn’t know what to do with that watering can (it’s just decorative, I think), so I stuck it there last year and it became a house. 🥰

      The Bible is, like, upsetting. So much sexual assault type stuff, and then I feel weird that God MADE the Pharaoh’s heart hard to Mose’s pleas just so God could show off and get people to fear him so they will obey him. This time reading it, I’m noticing how there is so, so much repetition.

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    • I just left a comment on your Flight Behavior review. Thanks for linking that for me.

      I saw in my inbox a post from you called Piglet. I haven’t read the post yet, but to be honest, an email titled “Piglet” made my heart race. Doesn’t it just sound like the title of some hate mail?? Then I saw it was from your blog and had a “whew!” moment.

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      • Oh dear I’m sorry the title made your heart race, but there is a reason for that (although I thought of the little companion to Winnie the Pooh first). It’s a book about a woman who literally goes by that nickname because of how the family she grew up with thinks she eats. I think you might like reading my review, but you probably wouldn’t like reading the novel.

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  6. Good on you Melanie for thinking this through and coming up with a plan. (My only question is, do you feel you can manage three blogs/sites? I guess it depends on how often you decide to write each one.)

    I enjoyed your inspiration for this post and all your lovely pics. I have read Eucalyptus. It’s become a bit controversial from a feminist sense, but I loved the eucalyptus part.

    The most recent novel I read that had beautiful nature writing in it was Robbie Arnott’s Limberlost, which me brother felt capture the Tasmanian landscape beautifully – and he would know.

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    • I swear I’ve heard of Limberlost, which makes me wonder if I read it in school. It’s entirely possible my brain is mixing up the book title with the TV show Land of the Lost.

      As for three blogs: the horror one is easy because I was always writing about movies, just on paper. The ASL blog I need to use as a space of reflection and growth. It really should be a tool.

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  7. Hello – I’m back and it’s lovely to be reading your posts again! I really enjoyed this post and have actually been having similar thoughts during my break – blogging was becoming a burden and a stress, and I think part of that was the fact that it had got away from what I originally wanted to do, which was write about books I read. I’m coming back from my hiatus, but giving myself permission not to read every post in my feed/feel guilty when I can’t keep up, which was part of why I took a break!

    As for “nature coming into her own” books, I can’t think of any that I’ve read recently, although it is a genre I enjoy. I am hoping to get to Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot soon, which is his accounts of walking in the British Isles, so I imagine that will be about nature a lot. And I’m currently reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which does have a lot of nature imagery and I’m really enjoying it – but nature is often a rather sinister force in the book, so I’m not sure it fits the theme of the post. I love all your pictures – your garden looks so green and lush!

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    • You picked a great post to come back for: me changing things up! I’m so glad to hear from you. I kept thinking I should email you as a friend, but I also knew you were busy and didn’t want to send something you had to take care of to your inbox. I’m surprised to hear you felt like blogging was becoming a burden because I sat and thought a moment about your posts. Other than the photos of your trip to South America, I couldn’t think of any posts that WEREN’T about books. Do you mean doing different book challenges, perhaps? I know those can stress me out because they always have an underlying message that I need to keep up with something.

      The MacFarlane book sounds like a good way for me to get some history and geography, two topics I like but struggle with when they’re written about in a dry, factual way with no narrative to move me along.

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      • It wasn’t the book challenges – I love those! In fact, the thing that has tempted me back is the fact that I knew I would miss 20 Books of Summer. I think in my case it’s less the posts I was writing and more trying to keep up with everyone else’s – lots of the bloggers I followed to start with have posted less about books over the years, and their posts have become more personal/journal-like. It’s not that I don’t like reading those, but I find it harder to think of comments to make and then I feel guilty for not being able to keep up. (The blog equivalent of not knowing how to make small talk at a party, I think). I am also writing much more fiction than I was when I started my blog, so I started to feel like this was taking time away from that – and I got some rather snide comments in the early part of this year (now deleted) that just made me enjoy blogging less. But I think as long as I stick to reading, writing, and talking about books, and don’t put pressure on myself to read every post by everyone, I will be sticking around for a long time 🙂

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        • Skip around and read posts that appeal to you, especially if you have a lot of blogs you follow. At some point around seven years ago I cut way down on the number of blogs I was following because I didn’t care for how the person wrote about books or they never interacted, ever.

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  8. I don’t know how well known it is outside of Canadian poet circles but Patrick Lane’s There is a Season is a total love letter to his garden.

    I often tell my girls that a weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place, that anything can be considered a weed if someone doesn’t want it but in another spot it might be celebrated. I probably tell them that because I find it an encouraging thought for myself!

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  9. To Sue/WG: I have three blogs. They occupy different spaces in your head, though finding the time to keep all three up to date is sometimes a hassle.

    Good on Biscuit! While I rarely listen to my own mother’s advice (or let her read what I write), Biscuit is spot on, I reckon.

    Eucalyptus is good, amusing, short.

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    • Grab the Lapels is a passion project and (I did not predict this) a gathering of friends. My ASL blog is a goal, a place to reflect, but also a work website that will go on my applications in the future to showcase my certificates and videos. The horror blog is something I was basically doing on paper already, and it’s just fun. I’m not following other horror blogs. I believe I am filling a niche where people Google the cheaply made, streaming for free horror on Tubi and can’t find any reviews.

      Bill, I believe because Biscuit is a devoted follower of this blog (but always hesitant to comment for fear of sounding stupid), so she has watched it change and knows what’s up.

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  10. In contrast with Jeanne, I’d recommend Prodigal Summer over Flight Behavior if you’re going to read a Kingsolver. But I remember it being more about sex and coyotes/ land conservancy than gardening.

    I second Stefanie’s recommendation re: Soil by Dungy. Also a British book about gardening I enjoyed very much is Seed to Dust by Marc Hamer.

    Well done on figuring out what you want to do with your blog(s)!

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    • I would say you had me at “sex and coyotes” if I hadn’t read several reviews on Goodreads in which people described the main character as a horny biologist!

      I added the Mark Hamer book. I’m intrigued by this idea of a garden meant for anyone who looks at it, who gets different things from it like when we read books.

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  12. Your plants are beautiful! I’m always so fascinated by the incredible growth that yours and Laila’s gardens have being so much further south than me. I live vicariously through your green thumbs…

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