“First–in answer to your answer to my veery letter–I thought the whole episode pretty starry, beginning with the fact that, as I learned the other day, while I was in the Rock Creek Park listening to veeries and wishing for you, you were walking along your road listening to wood thrushes and wishing for me!”
Rachel Carson, in a letter to Dorothy Freeman, June 5, 1954
The afternoon when I started reading the book of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman’s letters, I got excited by the editorial introduction alone. But then it was time to make dinner before I had made my way to the letters themselves. So I put the book down and searched instead for podcasts that I could listen to while chopping vegetables to roast. I expected to find episodes with background information about Carson’s life, and I did. I also found this absolute gem.
As noted in the BirdNote summary, this podcast “is the story of Carson and Freeman’s relationship. It grew from their shared love for the natural world — and one species of bird in particular: the Veery, a kind of thrush. Plain looking as it is, the Veery has a beautiful song. And that song matters to Rachel and Dorothy. It’s an expression of the wonder they experience in nature — and in each other.”
The podcast includes an interview with scholar Lida Maxwell based on her lovely essay, “Queer/Love/Bird Extinction: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as a Work of Love.” There’s a lot in the podcast—and especially the essay—that I hope to circle back to in future posts. What I’m most taken with first, though, is the notion of what I’m calling “veery love.” As Maxwell states in the interview, she is not interested in “classifying that feeling” of love between Carson and Freeman, in terms of “saying…they were queer…or it was just friendship.” Rather, Maxwell is interested in how Carson and Freeman understood their loving relationship.
According to Maxwell, Carson and Freeman’s letters developed a lexicon for describing their relationship. As part of that lexicon, they understood the relationship with each other in relation to the veery, a kind of thrush, and its special, two-tone song. More specifically, they characterized their wonder about the mystery and beauty of their love as akin to their wonder about the veery’s song. As Carson wrote in the letter above, they shared the “starry” experience of “listening to veeries” and “wishing” to be with each other.
While reading Carson and Freeman’s letters, as well as work like Maxwell’s, I am also building my base before starting to do longer hikes in preparation for the Rachel Carson Trail’s Homestead Challenge. What this base-building phase has looked like so far is running 3 mornings a week, usually 3-4 miles, and hiking on the weekends. That said, what I know about training is from running, and marathon training in particular. I still need to research how to smartly train for a hiking challenge.
But so far, since starting the blog, here’s what I’ve done:
| Sunday, 12/6 | Walked 5.2 miles on Spring Creek Canyon Trail, carrying kiddo on my back, with friends |
| Monday, 12/7 | Ran 3.9 miles on neighborhood paths, pushing the little one in a jogging stroller, with a friend |
| Wednesday, 12/9 | Ran 4 miles on nearby trails, pushing the kiddo in stroller |
| Friday, 12/11 | Ran 3 miles on the treadmill |
| Saturday, 12/12 | Hiked 4.8 miles on Shingletown Gap trails, carrying the little one on my back, with a friend |
| Sunday, 12/13 | Hiked 4 miles on Tussey Mountain, including the Lonberger Path, kiddo on my back, with a friend |
During the Spring Creek Canyon hike, the kiddo—who normally sleeps in his crib on a set schedule—fell asleep on my back for the first time. My friend Josh captured the cuteness, which I’ll leave you with today.
Walking with Rachel Carson's Letters 