In reading Mary Oliver’s essays, maybe the lesson for writers is this: If you are going to write about the meaning of your life or your most deeply held beliefs, write about something else.
The essay “Staying Alive,” which I described as a good autobiography, is about foxes. At least it has some of the best anecdotes about foxes I’ve seen.
Her essay “Sister Turtle” is of course about turtles, but if it’s not also about deeply held beliefs I don’t know what those things might be.
She talks of how those of us with inherited wealth — and by that she means the thoughts and ideas or writers and thinkers who came before us — have a responsibility to live thoughtfully and intelligently. She says that the life devoted to that ideal is marked by curiosity and respect.
The essay is about turtles. But if human beings had to have a creed that we all could recite with together, I could live with that one.
• Source: Mary Oliver, Upstream; New York: Penguin Press, 2016. “Staying Alive” is on pp. 13-22, and “Sister Turtle” is on pp. 49-61.
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