About A Tree for Antarctica – and other things that may come to mind!
You may wonder, “What does that title MEAN?!”
Well…. I really cannot tell you that, OF COURSE! You need to read the book to ‘get it’. If I did tell you, all you would have would be derivative information, and not your OWN depth of personalized discovery. Also, you would miss out on the FUN of having found out for yourself.
Discovery of all sorts is one the very best things in life. You can truly be an explorer without going anywhere. I think many of us found that out during this year and more of Covid. (Oops, did not mean to mention that C word.)
Well, let’s talk about a different C word!
Maybe we can talk about the 17-year cicadas? I thought I had heard them recently in midday and got my phone ready to record the cacophony. Then it stopped abruptly, which I don’t think they do – but I am not sure about that. On later reflection, I thought maybe the sound had been a neighbor’s air conditioner or some street repairs grinding away.
Nevertheless, the next day the sound was back, louder than before! Also, there were more little holes visible in the ground from which cicadas had emerged overnight. Their miraculously long life-cycle, as annoying as it might seem, is an example of long-term persistence against great odds. And even this grand example is not quite as long as was the gestation period, from thought to finish, of A Tree for Antarctica.
Perhaps you may wonder how the idea for this novel came to me? I wish that were easy to say. The idea grew over many years from a tiny newspaper article about Antarctica melting in the Washington Post into a giant tree – a tree so big that it shaded and nourished much of my life with its hearty trunk sprouting more and more branches of ideas.
Have you ever had an interest that took you mentally far afield from normal life? An interest that urged you to discover things and travel to unusual places? I surely hope so, because a life of discovery can be both exciting and absorbing! Traveling down that long road of discovery, I also found a worthy cause or two that called for action.
In my next post, we will travel together and discover some highlights of that journey.
Meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy reading “A Tree for Antarctica!”
VJ (Ginny) Michaux