Birding taught me something this week: you don’t rush. You move from perch to perch. You stop. You wait. You notice. This essay does the same.Perch: PaperThis week, for Environmental Imagination, we read The Conference of the Birds. This is a must-read. Check it out from the library. Buy it if you can. It’s worth

Prized Archie Comic Book CollectionThis week for Environmental Imagination we have the theme of Flora, Fungi, and Fauna: Encountering a “Cabinet of Curiosities.” In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald introduces the idea of the Wunderkammer—a cabinet of curiosities, or more directly translated from German, a cabinet of wonders. Macdonald collects essays about bird nests, ants, mushrooms,

(I wonder what Otis is dreaming about….turn sound on for the full wonderment!)I just started Vesper Flights for my Environmental Imagination course, and honestly — don’t you already love that title?Environmental. Imagination.As if the world is inviting us back into relationship.Early on, Helen Macdonald introduces the idea of the Wunderkammer — a cabinet of wonders.

For a long time, I thought home was a place you could point to on a map.Colorado felt like home.Then Nashville did.Now Pittsburgh does too.But somewhere along the way, I realized that none of those places ever fully answered the question.John Denver has been singing in my head lately—“Comin’ home to a place he’d never

Intentions. Prepare a story about the best-laid plans. As I sit at my desk, laptop open, blank screen, my coffee nearly finished, I’m faced with it. Writing. Funny, not funny. I started an MFA in creative writing program at Chatham University in the fall. And guess what happened to my writing? It stopped. I’ve struggled