Making Room for Enchantment
And working with what you've got.
Hello lovely readers! It’s back-to-school time here already, which feels strange given that so many other families in the U.S. are still in the throes of summer vacation. But we’ve been fitting in some end-of-summer activities, like berry picking, creek wading, flower picking, and making lemonade for a lemonade stand (and fulfilling my daughter’s entrepreneur dreams!). Summer is still baking the earth here in Virginia, but a few leaves on our walnut tree are starting to change color, too. It’s a time of seasonal transition, which feels fitting given that I’m revising my memoir manuscript anew and finding new flow in the changes there, too. Read on for this week’s mini word eats, plus late-summer inspired eats and drinks!
ENCHANTMENT: a feeling of great pleasure; delight. The state of being under a spell; magic. (Source: Oxford Languages)
Nearly three years ago, I took a workshop co-hosted by best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert. She described enchantment as a soft feeling, one that inspires you to “look around amazed.”
That’s exactly how I felt last week, as my family and I were making time for summer activities in the run-up to the start of the school year. We went berry picking, eager to take advantage of the season of triple berries. I went into a kind of trance as I zeroed in on prime specimens: ruby raspberries, plump blackberries, blushing blueberries. Together with my mom and my daughter, Ava, we marveled at nature’s ability to produce such bounty. We assume that the berries will be here for us to pick each summer, and we are fortunate that our assumption was true, but stopping to think of the work behind the scenes only added to the magic. We thought of the farmers tending the canes and bushes, and of the plant’s DNA, signaling when to store up energy, to burst forth in growth spurts, and to allow for the delicate, steady ripening at the hands of the sun and rain.
By the time we got to the blackberries, after harvesting pints of raspberries and golden raspberries and nearly a gallon of blueberries, the sun was soaring and Ava’s energy was lagging. Until she saw a monarch butterfly land on a nearby wildflower. She abandoned her bucket to chase the winged creature, hoping that she could catch it, or that it might land and perch on her outstretched hand so that she could observe its markings up close, feel the tickle of legs on her skin. You could see in the twinkle of her eyes how magical this was to her, and this delighted me, too.
After berry picking, we went for donuts at Carol Lee Donuts, a Blacksburg, Virginia institution, where we ordered a dozen, then each selected one to eat outside the shop. Ava posted up on the curb while my mom and I stood, munching and licking glaze off our fingertips. A puff of sugar and yeast dissolving on the tongue, just enough chew for it to resemble a donut. Pure pleasure. Still, eating the donut was just as ephemeral as trying to catch a butterfly.
Later, in the car on the drive back, my mom remarked at how fast she had eaten her glazed round. “I usually savor it,” she said, with a trace of wistfulness.
“Me too,” I responded, nodding, “But I couldn’t help myself.”
Such is the spell that a Carol Lee’s fresh, glazed donut can cast.
The drive passed pleasantly, in just under an hour, the mist lifting from the Blue Ridge Mountains, revealing the tree top’s florets bursting lush and green. I looked over at my mom and asked if she was doing okay.
She smiled and said, “I’m savoring.” I knew she meant all of it: the morning spent picking berries in the sun, enjoying Ava presenting her basket for her to admire or a particularly large berry for her to ooh at, three generations spending time reaping the bounty of nature’s gift. And of course, the lingering taste of glazed sugar, hardened on the corner of her mouth (and somehow also on her forehead), then dissolving when she licked her lips.
May we all pause to find small moments of delight, create space for pleasure, and make room for enchantment, always.
Memoir Updates
After taking a pause for a few weeks, I finally happened upon some clarity while sitting on my porch yesterday morning: Work with what you’ve got. A prevailing piece of advice from wise teachers has been to write the book that you want to write, yet for a brief spell, I was caught up in trying to ascertain how I could make my manuscript more sellable. But I’d already written the book I wanted to write, so why was I trying to do anything different? Why not work with what I’ve got? I had an eye-opening conversation during my last session with my mentor last month, Amanda Montei. We talked about what I want the reader experience to look and feel like, and I realized that, if my purpose is to serve others with my words, then I want them to have the language to give voice to their own experiences. And I’m cultivating faith that sharing my personal stories is the most powerful way to do that.
Published Articles & Media Appearances
Interested in seeing what I’ve written or spoken about lately? Here are couple highlights:
REVIEW: It’s Fun to Be a Person I Don’t Know by Chachi D. Hauser
For Hippocampus Magazine, I reviewed this beautiful, lyrical, deeply textured memoir about the search for personal identity while being part of a famous family (the D. in her name stands for Disney). Hauser states it succinctly: “I want to create myself, a person who recognizes their lineage but is not defined by it.” I think we all seek to understand where we came from and long to forge our own path, without being constrained by the tethers of family history, trauma, or legacy.
For En Forme, a glossy Virginia-based lifestyle magazine, I wrote about Fire Station One, Roanoke’s first of its kind, all-in-one, furniture showroom, boutique hotel, and Nordic-inspired bistro. Shout out to my pal Aaron Spicer for the stunning photographs that always make my words leap from the page with added urgency and beauty.
This one is about a delightful small business that makes outrageously delicious-smelling and gorgeous-looking handmade soaps, also for En Forme. Just stepping into the shop brings me a moment of enchantment; as I write in the article, it’s like the olfactory version of Willy Wonka’s lickable wallpaper. Only instead of snozzberries, we’re talking Lavender Honey Rosemary and Citrus Bergamot, the latter of which smells like a cross between candied citrus and Fruit Stripe gum.
Books, Bites & Beverages
Books: I just finished Maggie Smith’s You Could Make This Place Beautiful. It is gorgeous, defies conventional form, and it was such a joy to read, despite the sometimes-tough subject material for the author. Smith’s incredible poetic voice really shines and I marveled at how she interprets the world and the language of her words to form new meaning.
Bites: Tomatoes seemed to arrive especially late this year, but I held out until the tomatoes were truly ripe before I had my first tomato sandwich of the season. It’s a Southern thing, in which you put thick-cut summer tomatoes, maybe sprinkled with some flake sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper, onto pieces of white bread slathered with mayo. The components of tomato sandwiches may be few, but the preferences are plenty and engender fierce loyalties. For more on this, check out my friend Jenn Rice’s story for Garden & Gun: Tomato Sandwiches Rules and Regulations.
Beverages: Ava had been asking all summer long to do a lemonade stand, and we finally carved out some time on a Saturday morning to hand squeeze lemons, make some simple syrup, and find the right ratio of sweet-to-tart. Ava takes her tasting very seriously, and always has a line-up of spoons at the ready. I love that she closes her eyes when she tastes something. She made $26.50, owing in large part to a generous tipper as well as an angel investor who supplied the raw materials and equipment.
I feel like I was there with you - picking berries, eating a donut, driving along in the silent contentment. What a beautiful day!
I’ve had moments of feeling a magic when I look at my kiddos lately.
Loved reading your book review, Layla!