PAULA WHYMAN: BAD NATURALIST
On this episode of Big Blend Radio’s “Nature Connection” Show, author Paula Whyman discusses her memoir, “BAD NATURALIST: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop,” out now through Timber Press. Watch here in the YouTube player or download the episode on Podbean.
When writer Paula Whyman set out from her suburban DC empty nest, she was seeking a rural haven, maybe a small farmhouse with an old hayfield where she could put her interest in conservation into action. Even though she had never excelled at gardening, Whyman couldn’t shake the idea of cultivating a small native meadow, an acre or two where wildlife could thrive. It would be a pleasurable next act for her newfound spare time — with room for her mercurial poodle to run. Then she set foot on 200 acres of old farmland perched atop a Virginia mountain and her dream took on a gigantic new scale.
As she gets the lay of this breathtaking land, Whyman approaches her mountain-sized ecological restoration challenge with a mixture of humility and humor. She has to, because as she quickly discovers, it’s impossible to be a “good” naturalist. The experts she consults offer conflicting advice on how to best restore the land, and the plans she develops are delayed as the wrong kinds of plants expand their turf, pushing toxic substances into the soil. But the mountaintop is teeming with life and hope: native elderberries, wild bergamot, and jewelweed spring up, lichens sprawl, bees bumble and butterflies float, songbirds call, and a few of Whyman’s plans for the place eventually go right.
With the Blue Ridge above and the wrong footwear below, Whyman leads us on an exploration of nature and human nature in turn. How can we learn and adapt and find patience from one season to the next? What do we do when we get lost in our own woods? When there’s no perfect option, does that mean there’s no good option, OR is the perfect the enemy of good? In the end, Whyman’s mountain is a metaphor — and an inspiration for undertaking big, tangled challenges before we can possibly know what we’re getting ourselves into. What matters, she shows, is taking that first step.
Paula Whyman is the author of “You May See a Stranger,” an award-winning linked short story collection. Her writing has also appeared in The Washington Post and The American Scholar, and in various literary journals. She has been awarded residencies by MacDowell, Yaddo, VCCA, The Studios of Key West, and Oak Spring Garden Foundation, and work on Bad Naturalist was supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council. More at https://paulawhyman.com/
