Beginning Anew
Hello again from Nugget
Hi again!
Welcome back to Nugget. I’ve missed you. This is my first post since 2022.
I’m not sure how often I’ll post. I’m a monogamous writer. I like to take my time. The essay below has been germinating for five years. Five years!!!
I’m also working on my first novel, so there’s room for little else creatively. I know I should give readers something to expect - a posting cadence, what Nugget will be about, and a clear point of view. The pressure to create quickly and frequently to stay fresh in the minds of readers can feel unbearable and quash my creativity. If you’re anything like me, the Substacks piling up in your inbox are their own kind of pressure.
Maybe let’s consider new issues a little treat for now? Nugget began as a zine, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore. Will you join me on the journey to figure it out?
Migration
It is spring time. Here in Florida, it is quickly edging into summer. The flowers are blooming (blink, and you’ll miss the azaleas), the birds are nesting, the crate myrtles sending up new shoots. This happens every year, but we are still refreshed and reenergized when the first buds say hello. The Northern Hemisphere has turned her face to the sun and we are basking in it.
For the first time since we’ve lived in our home, a dove nested in our backyard. When I let my dog out one morning, there was a baby bird on the ground. I didn’t yet know about the nest, and the small thing was so rough and ready I was sure it was dead. I was crushed.
When my husband bent to pick it up, it turned its head. He found the nest and gently placed the baby with its sibling. I’ve been checking on Lady Dove (as I’ve named her), every day. She sits and watches me. I tossed bird seed on the ground around her tree, so she wouldn’t have to travel far.
A week later, the babies are visible in the nest, poking at mom for a snack. Soon they will fly away to their own nests. The next day, they’re on the ground, struggling to use their fresh wings.
I wonder if Lady Dove will return next year. Will her babies? After the cool spring turns to a summer burn, after the autumn leaves fall and the winter bites.
Some animals have a tendency called philopatry, or natal homing, where they return to the places they were born, otherwise known as being “site faithful.” They return for the favorable breeding grounds, or sufficient sources of food, a constant in a world that’s always changing. It’s still unknown how the Florida Scrub Jays, or Sockeye Salmon, know how to return to these places. Is it some sort of shared memory, or a magnetic pull?
I’ve seen this in humans, too, but we experience this site fidelity differently. We share and treasure memories of the gatherings that changed us, thinking about the next time we can go back. It becomes tradition.
I’ve experienced this pull from Bonnaroo. The first year felt free and magical, in a way I’ve only experienced a few times before.
The group I joined (which has been dubbed the Annual Sandhill Crane Migration) is an eclectic group, full of kind, smart, empathetic and honest people, some of who have been to Roo five years, eight, ten. We united in a shared experience of joy, whether it was your first Roo or your seventh. I went two more times the following years, and still desire to return to the Farm eventually.
This summer, I will go to Bread Loaf Environmental Writer’s Conference. The Mountain, as it’s sometimes called, is another place about which I hear whispers of magic. Bread Loaf has a cap on how many times you can return because it’s so desirable. I want to know - what is it about these places that make them our own versions of site fidelity?
I think it’s less about the place and some alchemy of the right time and the right group of people positioned together to grow in similar ways. A lightning bolt of chemistry that ties us together forever. Maybe it’s not even that. Maybe it starts from the top, with an idea to create community and foster creativity, and that mission drips into every cell of the event.
In any case, I’ll be thinking of my Cranes this summer, when they are coincidentally at Bonnaroo at the same time I’ll be at Bread Loaf. I wish them a happy migration.
To close, I’d like to share some things I’m enjoying.
Input and Output
📖 Reading: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, getting in the spring mood with Anna Jones’ salads; and looking forward to the release of Hurley Winkler’s residency dispatches from a local photo booth as a book.
🎥 Watching: Running Point Season 2 (Netflix), Top Chef Season 23 (Peacock), Taskmaster Season 21 (YouTube), Murder She Wrote (Roku Channel)
🏃♀️ Doing: interval runs, Pilates, and lap swimming
🎨 Creating: Practicing a reading for Bread Loaf, painting watercolor skies, collaging with vintage postcards and creating a dance party playlist
Citations
John M. Pearce, Philopatry: A return to origins, The Auk, Volume 124, Issue 3, 1 July 2007, Pages 1085-1087, https://doi.org/10.1093/auk/124.3.1085
Woolfenden, G. E. and J. W. Fitzpatrick (2020). Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.flsjay.01
“Philopatry.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/philopatry. Accessed 09 May. 2026.
I loved this read- it resonated with me deeply. A happy migration to all- however that looks like for you!