Do you have an interesting life?

A howling wind has stripped us clean
of leaves that once concealed every nest
of feeling— the fear, the anger, each
small bud of hope. Now, bare limbs
clatter against each other this December,
not knowing what to do with this new
exposure, not knowing where to turn.
~from "Love Stays" by James Crews

Rain streaks the windowpanes, blurring the bare branches of the trees that bow and twist in the wind. The sky is gray and the snow that’s stuck around through this otherwise cold December is giving way again to brown earth. It’s fitting weather as we approach Winter Solstice—burrowing weather, hibernation weather, will-we-ever-see-the-sun-again weather. It feels a bit like we’ve lived through a year-long solstice, a dark time where we’ve witnessed the gleeful vandalism of nature, culture, science, medicine, the arts, architecture, diplomacy, compassion, humanity. Will the light ever return? I have hope, but I don’t have certainty. All I know is that we have to seek light where we can find it—in friends, in family, in the natural world—and be the light for others who need it.

A couple of months ago I attended a crime writing conference, and while the keynote speaker was signing the book I’d bought, he asked me if I was a crime writer. I replied that I’d published a memoir but was in the early stages of writing a mystery. “A memoir, huh?” he said. “Do you have an interesting life?” I laughed self-deprecatingly, because obviously I don’t have an interesting life; I was in a conference room on a beautiful Saturday in September. I hastened to explain that my memoir was about hiking 500 miles across Colorado with three kids, which might be considered interesting to some people, or maybe not. And then I hurried off with my signed book, feeling duly chastened about daring to write about my uninteresting life.

When I later rehashed this conversation, I got angry. I spent my twenties not writing, because I was waiting for my life to get interesting. I spent my thirties writing about motherhood, because I couldn’t stop myself from writing about it, even though a significant portion of the publishing establishment found the subject uninteresting. And I spent my forties volunteering for a literary journal focused on writing about motherhood because I believed so strongly that despite the industry’s view, the subject was interesting enough that mothers writers deserved attention, guidance, and publication and mother (and other) readers deserved to read excellent writing (memoir-style essays as well as fiction and poetry) on the subject.

I thought of this comment again after a recent YouTube live interview, when the host asked if I had any advice for listeners who have a desire to write but are hesitant to get started because they’re afraid they have nothing interesting to say. My advice to these would-be writers: Just write anyway, without worrying about who might read you words and whether those readers will find your life interesting. (My interviewer, a former academic, blanched at the idea of ignoring audience, and I hastened to add that during revision and editing is the time to think about audience, but not during drafting.) I mentioned that Virginia Woolf wrote an essay about a moth dying an a windowsill. It’s a brilliant piece of writing describing an absolutely ordinary (or, as she says, insignificant) creature, and a meditation on life and death.

It’s not an interesting life that makes for good writing, it’s careful attention to and thoughtful examination of our ordinary lives. Also, of course, writing well. I was again reminded of this topic in the last couple of weeks, with the publication of a memoir from a so-called journalist who crossed every ethical line imaginable with her sources and the counter-publication of salacious details of those crossed lines by the journalist’s ex. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, count yourself lucky.) I’m sure these people consider their lives interesting, but in fact they’re just sordid. And their writing, from the excerpts I’ve been exposed to, is embarrassingly bad.

Which is all to say, don’t wait for your life to get interesting before you start writing. Also, don’t mistake tackiness for edginess or word salad for cleverness. If you want to write, it’s because you have something to say, so make sure your words actually say something.

The cardinal is back. He comes and goes throughout the year on his own schedule. (If I was a real naturalist, I’d keep better track). He is equal parts delightful and maddening. I didn’t grow up in cardinal territory, so I still have not grown blasé about their crimson feathers, black face masks, peaked caps, and ‘80s-video-game-blaster songs. I love to see them, and I love to hear them. But…

This particular male cardinal (or, possibly, a never-ending series of male cardinals) has territorial issues. All morning long nearly every day, he beats himself senseless fighting with his own reflection in two particular windows on our house. The tap. . . tap. . . tap of his cheese-wedge of a bill coming in contact with glass over and over again gets a little monotonous, but mostly I worry about the poor guy’s bird brain. It can’t be good for it. But, according to the Penn State Extension Service, this is perfectly normal behavior and nothing to worry about, except to the degree that it irritates people inside the house.

So instead of concerning myself with birdy brain damage, I will think of it as a metaphor, a suggestion for personal self-assessment as I approach the new year: what proverbial sheets of solid glass have I been beating my head against, and what can I change so I recognize my own reflection and expend that energy in a more productive direction?

If you’re hesitant to visit the coast off season, read my article “Hit the Beach this Winter” in the Green & Healthy Maine Winter Guide.

For a cozy read by the fire after you get home from the beach, pick up a copy of Echoes in the Fog: Literary Reflections on the Liminal Spaces of Maine’s Coast, in which my essay “The Saltwater Cure” appears.

To watch my chat about hiking and writing with Jared Champion check out Outside Comfort Zone on YouTube.

For my annual self-congratulatory post on my writing (and other) accomplishments, see I Did It! 2025 Edition.

For a more reasonably sized, and diverse, book stack than those of the previous couple of months, check out November 2025 Reads.

If you need a last-minute holiday gift for an outdoorsy friend or for yourself, pick up a copy of my book, Uphill Both Ways: Hiking toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail.

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