Over 10 years after it was published, I finally figured out how to read Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, the astonishing nonfiction book by botanist and poet Robin Wall Kimmerer: I’m listening to it. And—bonus—it’s read by the author, so it feels intimate and authentic.

For most of my adult life, the only audiobooks for me were genre fiction. I listened to all the Harry Potter books, various disturbing thrillers, and a slew of fantasy and science fiction. Whatever it was, it had to be plot-based, because it had to keep me awake while I was driving long distances. I may be a poet and nonfiction writer, but stories draw me in; unfortunately, I’ve read to the end of many books and sat through truly awful movies just to “find out what happens.” This is also why I can’t watch regular tv with ads anymore—I find myself watching commercials that hook my obsessive need to know how the story turns out. 

But then I finally jumped on the podcast bandwagon, and have listened to mostly science-based podcasts for a few years. Those suit my 20 minute drives around Memphis for errands and appointments; they’re more interesting than music, but not so story-based that I have trouble turning them off when I arrive at my destination. So when it finally clicked in my head that I could listen to this well-known book instead of podcasts, I was thrilled. Also relieved, because all I knew was that this was about the indigenous experience in North America (so, tragedy) and native plants (also loss and sadness). I felt that listening in small segments would be emotionally easier than reading the book itself. The kind of book I have been known to put down is one that contributed to my already-too-intense sadness.

I’m one of those people who’s been aware of and worried about ecological disaster since childhood. Climate change is just one aspect of that, but apparently it’s the big one, coming like a colossal wave to wipe us out. Most days I feel acutely aware of the disconnect between my everyday life in a suburban house with running water, heat, and air-conditioning and the foregone conclusion (? I’m not sure of this, of course, though many people are) of ecologic and civilization collapse. Oh, I plant native plants, don’t use chemicals, leave upturned clay pots for toads to shelter under, etc, etc. But unfortunately I don’t have the energy to do much else, so much of the time, when I think about “nature,” I have to actively fight off dread.

But not with this book. Braiding Sweetgrass does evoke the nostalgia that sloshes around in me, for a past in which humans didn’t treat the natural world as something to be stripped and conquered, but the book itself is not an elegy. It’s far better than that: in writing about what was and what is and what could be, Kimmerer makes meaning out of our relationship with plants.

In fact, Braiding Sweetgrass makes me want to write about my relationship to the natural world. I grew up in a time and place where I didn’t know the orange tigerlilies and sweet-smelling honeysuckle I loved were invasive, or that Osage orange trees produced those “oranges” to feed extinct North American mammoths and thus propagate themselves. But I am shaped by the plants and animals I knew, as surely as I’m shaped by the loved ones I’ve lost. I can grieve for what’s lost and dread future losses AND write about my grief. And then recognize the white-throated sparrows and red-bellied woodpeckers and Carolina chickadees in my backyard, knowing my relationship with them isn’t perfect, but it matters anyway.

originally posted on my Substack, Creative Grieving