"The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us - A Diary" by Emma Mitchell (published 2019)
As I sat reading this in my living room late last night, it occurred to me that I was experiencing a quiet and stillness that I haven't in many years. It was only brief, a minute or so, but I cherished the moment completely. I sat there on my couch with the candles flickering, the room filled with lamplight against the darkness of late evening, the balcony window open letting in a cool midsummer breeze, the outdoor fountain pleasantly making the sounds of falling water.
"The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us - A Diary" by Emma Mitchell (2019) is a book full of moments like the one I experienced above, yet highlighting the power and potency of the biological realm of plant-life in aiding illness and disease: here, Mitchell writes about her fight against the insidious grip of depression. Usually I'm tentative to read books that cover subjects such as mental illness: I suffer from a mental illness that is not as widespread/well-known as depression, but I was not disappointed by "the Wild Remedy". The symptoms Mitchell described were achingly relatable. Even moreso were her words that illuminated the the real struggle against it and the utter exertion Mitchell undertakes to comprehend and defeat the illness.
"Despite the wonder of the murmuration the last vestiges of mental energy that had been sustaining me throughout winter ebb away when I return home. The lack of sunlight and the incessant daily effort needed to defy this illness in the last five months has taken its toll. My brain chemistry shifts significantly and I plummet, sinking through the flimsy floor of positive thought and down the precipitous frictionless walls of depression's deepest well... the mental effort required to move my body becomes overwhelming. My daily to-do lists change from January's 'finish article, photograph primroses, pitch piece' to March's 'have bath, eat breakfast, brush teeth'. These small tasks are all I can manage. Some days I cannot tick anything off my list. The shift in my brain chemistry weighs me down and it becomes difficult to move." (p.94)
"The nightingale's song tumbles from some distant invisible point among the tress and it seems to snap these things into focus. Each time depression catches me I fight it with all the armory I have, just about wriggle free, recover slowly and try to continue with life. The cycle is inexorable and exhausting but I stay firmly in *that day*; I do not think of the illness as a whole. Standing here listening to intricate beautiful sound, the thoughts that I suppress suddenly erupt in my mind. I realize that it's unlikely that I'll ever be free of my condition..." (p.130)
And alongside these smaller passages of the depression are longer, glorious passages describing the natural wonders of Mitchell's surroundings outside of her cottage and farther out into the countryside of England: that is what the book is truly about. Mitchell describes her walks with Annie, her dog, and her two daughters. These are richly descriptive passages about plant-life and season, sunlight and weather, movement and growth, death and interaction. The pages (similar to the texture and color of "Bella Grace" magazine, but so much more intimate and personal) include Mitchell's illustrations of what she forages in exquisite detail with little handwritten captions. She also includes really, really pretty photographs (some from "knolling", some direct from her walks) from her excursions. Each word, each illustration, each photograph is created with such care and intention, and this can be felt from the page.
"As I watch the changing the changing shapes and movement of the flocks, my mind is filled with imagery. A large group flies out to sea, then swerves, making a speckled arc, like interference on an untuned television, as the birds shift direction and move back inland. These starlings, thousands of them now, are behaving like drops of mercury shaken on a saucer: small groups gather, split apart, then fuse again. In some parts of the sky they mass closely, like swarms of bees; kn others, snaking strands of birds squirm above the trees. Then we spot a dark silhouette. A larger bird is there at the outskirts of one of the flocks..." (p.91)
Pages go on and on in lyricism like this, and it is soothing and meditative and heartfelt, causing my mind to picture these landscapes and animal images, scents and sounds. No matter that each chapter is broken up by each month of the year, describing seasons and creatures that bear little relation to my geographical location. Mitchell's writing is not that of a guide telling you to look out your window with binoculars to see this or that right now, identify and note and study. She does this, but she is not saying you do it. Instead, her writing itself is medicinal, a creative expression of her sensory world, offered up like a present cupped in the hands to thirsty man. It really is that special.
I remember when I was in the throes of mental illness one summer (about ten years ago), and like Mitchell, I could not seem to move my body at all and rise out of bed, let alone get my mind to focus enough to do something, even *one* thing. My mom and aunt dragged me from bed (no big exaggeration) and we drove to one of those garden shops - it might have even been Home Depot or Menard's. Nothing fancy. No Botanic Garden or Arboretum. But they took me out to the garden center outside, where the plants and flowers and herbs and etc. sat on metal and wood in pots of different colors and sizes. It was like I was seeing and experiencing plant-life for the first time. Walking amongst these growing things I felt a rush of euphoria and suddenly felt happy. The colors, the smells, the textures seemed to permeate the dullness and heaviness of my entire physical being, lifting my mind to search elsewhere, somewhere better. I carry that feeling to this day, my green thumb becoming more and more astute every year. Like Mitchell I truly believe in the power of wilderness and nature to heal. To truly heal. I recommend her book to everyone who knows the preciousness of the land, the Earth, and whoever has struggled with mental illness of any kind.
"The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us - A Diary" by Emma Mitchell (2019) is a book full of moments like the one I experienced above, yet highlighting the power and potency of the biological realm of plant-life in aiding illness and disease: here, Mitchell writes about her fight against the insidious grip of depression. Usually I'm tentative to read books that cover subjects such as mental illness: I suffer from a mental illness that is not as widespread/well-known as depression, but I was not disappointed by "the Wild Remedy". The symptoms Mitchell described were achingly relatable. Even moreso were her words that illuminated the the real struggle against it and the utter exertion Mitchell undertakes to comprehend and defeat the illness.
"Despite the wonder of the murmuration the last vestiges of mental energy that had been sustaining me throughout winter ebb away when I return home. The lack of sunlight and the incessant daily effort needed to defy this illness in the last five months has taken its toll. My brain chemistry shifts significantly and I plummet, sinking through the flimsy floor of positive thought and down the precipitous frictionless walls of depression's deepest well... the mental effort required to move my body becomes overwhelming. My daily to-do lists change from January's 'finish article, photograph primroses, pitch piece' to March's 'have bath, eat breakfast, brush teeth'. These small tasks are all I can manage. Some days I cannot tick anything off my list. The shift in my brain chemistry weighs me down and it becomes difficult to move." (p.94)
"The nightingale's song tumbles from some distant invisible point among the tress and it seems to snap these things into focus. Each time depression catches me I fight it with all the armory I have, just about wriggle free, recover slowly and try to continue with life. The cycle is inexorable and exhausting but I stay firmly in *that day*; I do not think of the illness as a whole. Standing here listening to intricate beautiful sound, the thoughts that I suppress suddenly erupt in my mind. I realize that it's unlikely that I'll ever be free of my condition..." (p.130)
And alongside these smaller passages of the depression are longer, glorious passages describing the natural wonders of Mitchell's surroundings outside of her cottage and farther out into the countryside of England: that is what the book is truly about. Mitchell describes her walks with Annie, her dog, and her two daughters. These are richly descriptive passages about plant-life and season, sunlight and weather, movement and growth, death and interaction. The pages (similar to the texture and color of "Bella Grace" magazine, but so much more intimate and personal) include Mitchell's illustrations of what she forages in exquisite detail with little handwritten captions. She also includes really, really pretty photographs (some from "knolling", some direct from her walks) from her excursions. Each word, each illustration, each photograph is created with such care and intention, and this can be felt from the page.
"As I watch the changing the changing shapes and movement of the flocks, my mind is filled with imagery. A large group flies out to sea, then swerves, making a speckled arc, like interference on an untuned television, as the birds shift direction and move back inland. These starlings, thousands of them now, are behaving like drops of mercury shaken on a saucer: small groups gather, split apart, then fuse again. In some parts of the sky they mass closely, like swarms of bees; kn others, snaking strands of birds squirm above the trees. Then we spot a dark silhouette. A larger bird is there at the outskirts of one of the flocks..." (p.91)
Pages go on and on in lyricism like this, and it is soothing and meditative and heartfelt, causing my mind to picture these landscapes and animal images, scents and sounds. No matter that each chapter is broken up by each month of the year, describing seasons and creatures that bear little relation to my geographical location. Mitchell's writing is not that of a guide telling you to look out your window with binoculars to see this or that right now, identify and note and study. She does this, but she is not saying you do it. Instead, her writing itself is medicinal, a creative expression of her sensory world, offered up like a present cupped in the hands to thirsty man. It really is that special.
I remember when I was in the throes of mental illness one summer (about ten years ago), and like Mitchell, I could not seem to move my body at all and rise out of bed, let alone get my mind to focus enough to do something, even *one* thing. My mom and aunt dragged me from bed (no big exaggeration) and we drove to one of those garden shops - it might have even been Home Depot or Menard's. Nothing fancy. No Botanic Garden or Arboretum. But they took me out to the garden center outside, where the plants and flowers and herbs and etc. sat on metal and wood in pots of different colors and sizes. It was like I was seeing and experiencing plant-life for the first time. Walking amongst these growing things I felt a rush of euphoria and suddenly felt happy. The colors, the smells, the textures seemed to permeate the dullness and heaviness of my entire physical being, lifting my mind to search elsewhere, somewhere better. I carry that feeling to this day, my green thumb becoming more and more astute every year. Like Mitchell I truly believe in the power of wilderness and nature to heal. To truly heal. I recommend her book to everyone who knows the preciousness of the land, the Earth, and whoever has struggled with mental illness of any kind.
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