A few days ago, I found in a bibliography the name of a writer whom I admire greatly, Robin Wall Kimmerer. I have one of her books in my collection, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. And I had some time ago read Braiding Sweetgrass Then I saw her name in the bibliography of another book, one about herbal remedies, and that reminded me of how much I have enjoyed Kimmerer’s writing, so I decided to add Braiding Sweetgrass to my shelves. I checked the on-line book sellers whom I regularly do business with and realized that the book was just out of my budget for now. Yesterday, however, as I strolled through one of the three local libraries I frequent, there, in a display, faced out was Braiding Sweetgrass. Mine for the asking. And today I made time to open it to see if it was as wonderful as I had remembered. It is.
There is something charming and weird about having just what I want motion to me, “Here I am. I’ve been waiting for you.” And as wonderful the book was the first time, it’s as fresh and important at today. It’s better, in fact, than I had remembered it to be. And to add to the weird stuff, when I looked online, I found that she was a visiting speaker at Sweet Briar College today. Had I been a little faster, I might have heard her. But TADA! she has a TED talk available. Some days I mistrust our weird, wired world, and other days, I’m dancing around the room.