The Art of Living.365

Day 341 - “Cross Creek”

Last week I finally finished reading Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ memoir,Cross Creek,which was first published in 1942. I have read quite a few memoirs in my life and none compare to this one. This is not a complete autobiography, in that she focuses only on her time spent in Cross Creek, Florida, but nothing compares to the people, places (and animals) found there. One chapter she is talking about shooting a neighbor’s pig who keeps rooting up her petunias and in the next she’s talking about going rattlesnake hunting with a couple friends. At the turn of each page she introduces you to something new, fascinating, and completely alien to our suburban lives. She continually reminds us that we are a part of something bigger: “This was the cosmic life, with suns and moons to make it lovely. It was important only to keep close enough to the pulse to feel its rhythm, to be comforted by its steadiness, to know that Life is vital, and one’s own minute living a torn fragment of the larger cloth.” Rawlings also spends one long chapter describing the food typically eaten at the Creek, using such pharses as, ”Okra is a Cinderella among vegetables.” She was a fearless and adventurous woman who made the most out of life. I highly recommend this book; it will help anyone and everyone put their life in perspective and be grateful for everything we have.

“Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time.”