shepherd books, meeting interwoven wild

Purchasing Interwoven Wild: An Ecologist Loose in the Garden was, well, kind of wild, in an appropriated French saying sort of way.

I wandered into Shepherd Books for what I thought was the first time, and gave it the new-old-bookstore-once-over, careful to reign in my interest in the hopes of avoiding the over-zealous sales pitch—actually, this pitch applies to all manner of sales establishments; I just have more self-control in others—while paradoxically scrutinizing the shelves for the placement, division, and density of the environmental literature and science fiction, and was pleased to discover that though the SF wasn't immediately visible, the nature and travel writing was. Indeed, they took up the middle display, shiny utopian scenes of waterfalls and foreign countries juxtaposed against the post-1984 Carsonian pronouncements. I browsed idly through some of the authors and titles, just to get a sense of who was waiting patiently there and how the screening process at this particular location played out. I was late for a picnic at Beacon Hill Park, whose website is ironically utilitarian and decidedly unattractive (and who is pictured in the margin photos of this blog, actually), and had just stopped in to make good my longtime resolution to take a peek inside.

To my further delight, as I approached the shelved environmental creative nonfiction, I noticed that not only did the section on environmental literature spread out to the surrounding walls, but that books lay three deep in some places. One place in particular, for no immediately apparent reason, caught my eye. Compelled, I shifted through the two books ahead of it to pull out the aforementioned loose ecologist's gardening text.

I was already somewhat familiar with Don Gayton, and this text in particular, as he had come to English 478: A History of Nature Writing (syllabus hosted on Ecodemia) to chat about his latest work and its role among authors such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Luther Standing Bear, and John Vaillant. His presentation was quite engaging, perhaps especially to those in the class from the sciences, perhaps to those from the arts, for both as examples of the extensions of their roles.

What was particularly strange about finding his book, though, was that I knew it was going to be there. Not in the store, not in the section—remember, I had never been there—but in that particular location, behind the two nameless books in front, on the middling shelf against the wall. I had already bought this book from this place with the intention of reading it, and I couldn't refuse.

It was pondering this already-seen on my way to the park, the precision of location, the clarity of detail, that inspired the project as it stands now.

Thanks, subconscious.