Welcome to Fieldnotes

Why This, Why Now (1/52)

A few months ago I had the luxury of being at the library without my children. Having time to randomly browse felt amazing. I came across The Faraway Nearby, by Rebecca Solnit. I picked it up and read the first paragraph.

“What is your story? It’s all in the telling. Stories are compasses and architecture; we navigate by them, we build our sanctuaries and our prisons out of them, and to be without a story is to be lost in the vastness of the world that spreads in all directions like arctic tundra or sea ice. To love someone is to put yourself in their place, we say, which is to put yourself in their story, or figure out how to tell yourself their story.”

Clearly, I needed to read this book.

It sat on my bedside table for weeks. There was so much going on that I couldn’t find the time to read it. But I didn’t want to return it unread. Eventually I decided I’d just read the first chapter. But once I started reading it, I couldn’t stop. I read a little bit each night. I have no idea how many times the library auto-renewed that book for me, but I’m grateful.

Stories, Systems, and Choices

The book is about the ongoing process of how we create our stories, and let them go, and create new ones — and the choices we make as we do that. It is about relationships — between people, and places, and ideas — and how all those networks overlap and connect.

I was thrilled and amazed to discover a whole book exploring the world as a web of stories and systems, choices and change. Reflecting on what we can’t control, and what we can… or what we can at least influence. That family history, illness, apricots, the arctic, and art are all part of the same story — and it’s possible to make those connections to tell that story — felt beautiful and affirming.

Sometimes I feel like I’m only person who sees the world that way. But of course that's not true. We are living in overlapping systems, and we can use red thread to show those connections and weave them together to create stories.

The Mother of All Questions

Part of the book is about her mother’s illness. I wondered when her mother died, so I googled “Rebecca Solnit mother.”  What popped up was another one of her books, The Mother of All Questions.

The title seems pretty self-explanatory. The google summary says it is a collection of feminist essays “…advocating for women's stories to shape society and change treatment.” That book is now sitting on my bedside table, waiting it’s turn. Probably a subject for future notes.

So, message received. Creating stories by tracing the networks and connections in our world is necessary — even if, or maybe especially if — those are not the dominant stories. And we should share those observations and stories. They are needed.

Fieldnotes

I was thinking about all this as we traveled home after Thanksgiving. Our flight landed in the evening, then we rode the shuttle out to long-term parking where we had left our car. It was dark, and cold wind was blew towards us as we walked to our car. My four-year-old was walking beside me. “Something is happening to my eyes,” he said. “I don’t like it. Is it happening to your eyes too?”

Yes, I told him. It’s happening to my eyes too. I don’t like that cold wind in my face either.

But his question stuck with me. He was experiencing a new feeling and sharing it to see if that was what I was experiencing too. Don’t we all wonder that? Is this just me, or are other people experiencing the world this way too?

As adults, I think we often decide that it it’s just us. But that’s usually not true. How do we learn that? We can ask — something kids are excellent at, but grown-ups usually not so much. Or we can keep an eye out for clues, notes, observations that other people have shared. That depends on people sharing.

I'm grateful that The Faraway Nearby was sitting there at the library, over a decade after it was published, so I could find it at the moment I needed it. You never know what will resonate with people, or when, or why. So this year, I’ll practice sharing more. I'll be posting Fieldnotes — observations, reflections, maybe sometimes just notes — every Saturday in 2026. Because we are all finding our way and weaving our stories, and we can't do it alone.