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#Patricia Westerford
dk-thrive · 3 years
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three of my best friends were trees
Having just read “The Overstory,” by Richard Powers, I was delighted to learn more about Suzanne Simard, an inspiration for Patricia Westerford, who despite derision and opposition, proved trees communicate among themselves. When I was a child growing up in Marblehead, Mass., three of my best friends were trees: two oaks and a white pine. I named them, climbed them and talked to them knowing they recognized me and enjoyed my company. Now, at 88, all my two-legged friends are gone, but my tree friends are still standing. I visited them last summer, glad to see them tall, strong and healthy.
—  Cynthia Baketel Systrom, Stuart, FL in response to Ferris Jabr’s “The Social Life of Forests in the NY Times Magazine 12/6/20 issue (New York Times Magazine, Dec 20, 2020)
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paperbacksunday · 4 years
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Something about her perks boys up. Not her looks, of course, but an ever-so-slightly head-turning quality to her walk that they can't quiet place. Independent thought—a power of attraction all its own.
Richard Powers, The Overstory
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rebgarof · 4 years
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“We found that trees could communicate, over the air and through their roots. Common sense hooted us down. We found that trees take care of each other. Collective science dismissed the idea. Outsiders discovered how seeds remember the seasons of their childhood and set buds accordingly. Outsiders discovered that trees sense the presence of other nearby life. That a tree learns to save water. That trees feed their young and synchronize their masts and bank resources and warn kin and send out signals to wasps to come and save them from attacks. “Here’s a little outsider information, and you can wait for it to be confirmed. A forest knows things. They wire themselves up underground. There are brains down there, ones our own brains aren’t shaped to see. Root plasticity, solving problems and making decisions. Fungal synapses. What else do you want to call it? Link enough trees together, and a forest grows aware.”
[Listening to The Overstory, by Richard Powers, and Patricia Westerford is my character crush.]
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cherylatownsend · 5 years
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The Overstory by Richard Powers
One of the few surviving Chestnut trees is the center of a 125 year tale of multigenerational farmers, dwindling down to just a homestead, and this tree that anchors them since its planting. Immortalized in monthly photos, tasked from each father to son, it stands testament to survival, documented in its regal simplicity. Stoic when all else fade to memories.
The following tale is of a Chinese student of engineering who comes to America as his father’s last hope, as Mao takes their livelihood (and lives) away. He settles, schools, marries, and begets 3 daughters. He refuses his native tongue (yet for all his years in America, still talks like a newly embarked?) ... primarily set around a mulberry tree, of deep family lore, it is also where it ends.
Adam Appich is a gifted child in a family of mostly irrelevance. His story is sad, for the blindness and disdain. One of 5, he creates his own solitude in nature, observing. Each child had a tree planted for their birth, pertinently assumedly. Was not quite sure if the ending was intended to be humorous or not, but I chose to take it that way.
Douglas Pavlicek proves himself in the service, fighting in Vietnam and gets shot down after the war ends, still attaining a Purple Heart and an Air Force Cross for his injuries. No longer usable, he afters at a horse ranch where he reads Nietzsche to the steeds and tries to talk up the lonely street traffic via purposeful pot holes at the property end.
Quitting that job, he drives westward, happening upon a hidden clearcut while relieving himself roadside. The vastness angers, saddens and awakens him. National forests. Gone. He wants to take action. He hires on to replant designated areas, knowing it’s but a temporary fix, but a fix just the same.
I think that, so far, was the saddest chapter for me.
In Neelay Mehta, it dawns on me the centered eclecticism of this book. To write one story is good, admirable. To write 12 different stories in one book is, well, amazing. They need not all the pages each, as the story told us enough. I am in awe of the diversity, yet connection via a trees insertion. One or a forest, starring or backstage. Just as we all have that rooted factor in our own life - a tree, somewhere, sometime, mattered. Bravo, Powers, bravo.
Patricia Westerford !!!!
As brilliant as brilliant can be. I am in total, blissful awe. I don’t want to read another word, maybe ever. Just live in this story forever.
And then the stories start to connect. Branches grown inward towards the trunk of the whole. I wish I had paid more attention earlier.
I’m too connected, concerned, overpowered by the eco ramifications... it’s too real life (RL) given today’s atmosphere of disregard and gluttony. This book is breaking my heart.
I do not recommend this book for eco-empaths, but for general readership, it’s an in-depth read, fully charged and well executed. Powers delivers a diverse cast of characters that are all united in nature love. I wish I could say the same for all humanity.
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marksiegel · 6 years
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Before you even finish them you know some books change you. I read the chapter called “Patricia Westerford” with tears in my eyes. #richardpowers #theoverstory
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paperbacksunday · 4 years
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She takes his shaking hand in the dark. It feels good, like a root must feel, when it finds, after centuries, another root to pleach to underground. There are a hundred thousand species of love, separately invented, each more ingenious than the last, and every one of them keeps making things.
Richard Powers, The Overstory
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paperbacksunday · 4 years
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He looks at her as if she, too, is worth researching.
Richard Powers, The Overstory
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paperbacksunday · 4 years
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What frightens people the most will one day turn to wonder. And then people will do what four billion years have shaped them to do: stop and see just what it is they're seeing.
Richard Powers, The Overstory
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paperbacksunday · 4 years
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She's sure, on no evidence whatsoever, that trees are social creatures. It's obvious to her: motionless things that grow in mass mixed communities must have evolved ways to synchronize  with one another. Nature knows few loner trees.
Richard Powers, The Overstory
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paperbacksunday · 4 years
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I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
Richard Powers, The Overstory
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