Speaker 1: It's Maria's MutS and Stuff.
Speaker 2: What a great idea.
Speaker 3: On iHeartRadio, Welcome to Maria's Mutts and Stuff and with
Speaker 3: me is author Christopher Brown. He's also a lawyer, but
Speaker 3: he has his new book out, A Natural History of
Speaker 3: Empty Lots Field Notes from urban edgelands, back alleys and
Speaker 3: other wild places. I love that big, long title. By
Speaker 3: the way, thank you so thank you for this, for
Speaker 3: the book, and for chatting. So let's go from the beginning.
Speaker 3: What made you decide to write this book?
Speaker 1: I you know, I spent almost twenty years of my
Speaker 1: adult life, initially by accident, later on purpose, exploring the
Speaker 1: little pockets of wild space that exists in the cities,
Speaker 1: and then kind of learning how to find them, saying
Speaker 1: how much wild nature could like rebound and find habitat
Speaker 1: in these kinds of spaces, and then learning how much
Speaker 1: kind of interesting, charismatic, fascinating wildlife could be found there,
Speaker 1: and you know, learning how to better go about kind
Speaker 1: of facilitating the serendipity of having encounters with wildlife.
Speaker 4: You know, everything from you know, coyotes and.
Speaker 1: Raptors to more exotic creatures and even smaller creatures like
Speaker 1: you know, fascinating little insects that flutter around on our
Speaker 1: wildfires down here in Texas where we are, and so,
Speaker 1: and I'm also a novelist, and I wanted to sort
Speaker 1: of figure out a way to write a book that
Speaker 1: helped the reader kind of experience some of the wonders
Speaker 1: of these kinds of places, to maybe learn how to
Speaker 1: see them, and share some of the lessons that I
Speaker 1: learned in there, and the hope that they might help
Speaker 1: other people, well, you know, find some useful, actionable information
Speaker 1: and hopefully tell an interesting story along the way.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So, I mean this whole thing started you were looking
Speaker 3: at a house, is that correct? And then it was
Speaker 3: out of your price range, and then you saw a
Speaker 3: piece of property.
Speaker 2: Am I following right? And then you see that yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the big part of the story.
Speaker 1: Had started just as a young dad with.
Speaker 4: First my son and then my daughter and sort of
Speaker 4: looking things to do, looking for things to do with
Speaker 4: my kid or kids.
Speaker 1: And instead of driving out into the countryside or you know,
Speaker 1: going to the mall or something, I got the idea
Speaker 1: of like exploring the little creek behind the dead end
Speaker 1: street where we lived and seeing what we could find there,
Speaker 1: and that one thing led to another, and we found
Speaker 1: so much interesting stuff exploring these kinds of spaces, going
Speaker 1: paddling on a little stretch of urban river, that we
Speaker 1: decided to try to find a place where we could
Speaker 1: live in that kind of urban wilderness and actually cultivate
Speaker 1: that wild urban.
Speaker 4: Nature right in the you know, in our own backyard.
Speaker 1: And so I found, yeah, as you as you as
Speaker 1: you noted, this kind of brown field lot in East Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas that was bisected by an old petroleum pipeline, and
Speaker 1: set out to rehabilitating a lot, partly by taking that
Speaker 1: amazing restorative power of nature that you can see often
Speaker 1: in the untended empty lots, and and bring back the
Speaker 1: kind of prairie ecosystem that once was here.
Speaker 4: And the results were pretty remarkable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean it kind of when I was
Speaker 3: reading your book, I just it made me feel hopeful,
Speaker 3: And I think that was your intent. I mean, because
Speaker 3: it's right, Yeah, Because I mean it's really easy for
Speaker 3: all of us to just be like, oh, the environment,
Speaker 3: oh no, and pollution and we're losing species of animals.
Speaker 2: And then I read.
Speaker 3: Your book and I'm like, oh, he did this, and wow,
Speaker 3: you can find this bug and he found you know,
Speaker 3: this this animal or or this insect like you said,
Speaker 3: And it was just I don't know, I just got
Speaker 3: the feeling that it's a feeling of hope that not
Speaker 3: everything is lost, not everything just because big glass, ugly
Speaker 3: buildings are going up.
Speaker 2: It's it's not the end.
Speaker 3: There's you know, there's positive stuff down the road.
Speaker 2: And that that was what I got out of it.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say that, because
Speaker 4: that was absolutely the intent.
Speaker 1: Well, at the same time, taking a clear eyed view
Speaker 1: of like you know what, of how out of balance
Speaker 1: sometimes our relationship with nature is sure providing the reader
Speaker 1: a way to like see that the way we think
Speaker 1: about the climate future, which sometimes feels like it's like
Speaker 1: we don't even think there's going to be a future
Speaker 1: so dire, right, and we all feel such a lack
Speaker 1: of agency in what's going on.
Speaker 4: We're sort of waiting around for you know, the.
Speaker 1: Big institutions that kind of control our lives in a
Speaker 1: way to take action. And kind of a lesson of
Speaker 1: this book is that one you don't have to get
Speaker 1: in your car and drive out to a national park
Speaker 1: to find wild nature it's actually right nearby wherever you live.
Speaker 1: And two that you don't have to wait for others
Speaker 1: to take action to start.
Speaker 4: Healing some of the damage we've caused.
Speaker 1: Whether you're talking about climate, you know, warming or biodiversity
Speaker 1: lass you can do that. Whether you have a little
Speaker 1: apartment with the balcony or you know, do you want
Speaker 1: to do a little gorilla gardening like my friend who
Speaker 1: does it, you know, a patch of dirt under the
Speaker 1: untrained queens.
Speaker 4: Where I love that you got to work every day,
Speaker 4: right or.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or you know, a conventional backyard. And people are
Speaker 1: doing this kind of stuff all over the place.
Speaker 4: People are doing it in their businesses.
Speaker 1: People are putting green roofs on buildings not only because
Speaker 1: they're you know, green and beautiful, but because they have
Speaker 1: you know, economic and thermal benefits. And people are and
Speaker 1: you know, in both projects large and small, going.
Speaker 4: About these kinds of rewildings where you bring.
Speaker 1: Back you know, you just cultivate a bio you know,
Speaker 1: your own particular flavor of biodiversity wherever you are, usually
Speaker 1: with native plants to start, but and very quickly you
Speaker 1: find just astonishing results and it can kind of feel
Speaker 1: like Avatar and so.
Speaker 4: Sure if more people, as more people start.
Speaker 1: Doing that kind of thing, yeah, the impacts can really
Speaker 1: be profound.
Speaker 3: Right, And I think you're positive, Yeah, and positive, And
Speaker 3: I think that's where your book really shows that it
Speaker 3: can be done.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not a I'm not a professional gardener, no, right, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not a scientist. I'm a like lawyer who writes books, right,
Speaker 1: who practices law, whichever order you want to put it in.
Speaker 4: And I didn't know anything about how to like make
Speaker 4: up prairie.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I bought this.
Speaker 1: Kind of gnarly, you know, little urban acre that I
Speaker 1: could affordably because it was so gnarly, and it was
Speaker 1: like the death of the financial crisis, right, And I was.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, but turns out it's pretty easy, you know.
Speaker 1: You. I mean, it was basically like we put black
Speaker 1: plastic on the ground for one season and it sort
Speaker 1: of all the invasive plants came up and they found
Speaker 1: no sun and they sort of.
Speaker 4: Died in the ground.
Speaker 1: And then we tilled it and put these you know,
Speaker 1: bags of like a mix of native seeds of the
Speaker 1: prairie archetype that used to cover a ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of the region where we live or used to cover
Speaker 1: hundred percent, and now nine percent is gone. And and
Speaker 1: and within six months we had our own little successional
Speaker 1: prairie right outside our back door. And it's just it's
Speaker 1: a remarkably easy thing to do. So it really is
Speaker 1: very much within anybody's accessibility, I.
Speaker 2: Think, right right.
Speaker 3: And I think they would learn like I did from
Speaker 3: your book if they want to do it the same way.
Speaker 3: I was just some things I was like, oh, I
Speaker 3: would never even think of that.
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking particular.
Speaker 3: When you came upon a dead animal, and it's like,
Speaker 3: what do you do about that?
Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about that, about that experience.
Speaker 1: Well, I came upon I mean, I've come upon dead animals,
Speaker 1: and I've come up upon like wounded animals.
Speaker 4: It's the wounded animals that are the heartest.
Speaker 2: Exactly like the owl you said, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found a barred owl, you know, not long
Speaker 1: after I'd had my first like encounter with a healthy
Speaker 1: bard owl, kind of down.
Speaker 4: In the woods behind a door factory.
Speaker 1: Go figure sitting on a branch of a willow tree
Speaker 1: over a little sort of anthropocene lagoon where like drainage
Speaker 1: pipes emptied out at the in the floodplant of an
Speaker 1: urban river, and I was like, well, that's a really
Speaker 1: exceptionally beautiful animal.
Speaker 4: And yeah, when you have those encounters with.
Speaker 1: These creatures, it's sort of it's and you're sort of
Speaker 1: you know, having a little momentary stare down with them.
Speaker 1: It really gives you a connection with them and an
Speaker 1: investment in their presence.
Speaker 4: It's profound.
Speaker 1: And so then when a few months later, like driving
Speaker 1: back from dinner with friends, my wife and I encountered
Speaker 1: this owl like stranded at the side of the road,
Speaker 1: we perhaps unwisely to turn around, stop and pull our
Speaker 1: car and to start her card in the middle of
Speaker 1: a toll way bridge with no shoulder and put the
Speaker 1: hazards on and try to save this owl. And found
Speaker 1: that that's also not that unlike bunting a payer in
Speaker 1: your yard. Maybe isn't a thing to do as an amateur.
Speaker 1: It's a little more challenging, but it gave us a
Speaker 1: sense of like how hazardous the city can be.
Speaker 4: For a while, sure, I mean, yeah, you see we
Speaker 4: all for bust of us.
Speaker 1: Our main experience of you know, urban wildlife anymore is
Speaker 1: with seeing roadkill while driving to work. But it also
Speaker 1: gives you a sense of how resilient this wildlife is.
Speaker 1: Not just the way that eventually that owl was able
Speaker 1: to recover without me fiddling with it and take off
Speaker 1: and fly away, but the way things like, you know,
Speaker 1: everything from the raccoons, which we're all familiar with in
Speaker 1: the American landscape. One of our weirder native animals have
Speaker 1: like learned to evolve more rapidly than their country cousins
Speaker 1: because they're constantly adapt figuring out how to adapt to
Speaker 1: the challenges the city presents them, like how to get
Speaker 1: bunging cords off a trash can. Things like that, how
Speaker 1: the cardinals that nest in the eaves of our green
Speaker 1: roof used like industrial materials they harvest from the nearby
Speaker 1: factories to build their nests, you know, like insulation used
Speaker 1: from packaging.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Or the way that coyotes have like completely overtaken the
Speaker 1: urban spaces that you know, when I was a kid
Speaker 1: in the seventies used to be like occupied by stray dogs,
Speaker 1: mostly gotten under control, and now like even you think,
Speaker 1: like Chicago, who knew.
Speaker 4: But there are I think thousands of.
Speaker 1: Coyotes living in Cook County, and hundreds of them right
Speaker 1: in the heart of the loop, not scavenging like the
Speaker 1: straight dogs did, but hunting the smaller mammals that you know,
Speaker 1: live off our trash. So it's a it's a fascinating
Speaker 1: lessen in resilience once you start paying attention to this stuff.
Speaker 2: It is it is.
Speaker 3: And so what was it like for you the first time,
Speaker 3: your first coyote sighting?
Speaker 2: What was that like, I mean, my.
Speaker 1: First coyote sighting, especially in the city, was it was
Speaker 1: really it was slightly scary, super intense, a little bit mystical,
Speaker 1: even because coyotes, when you see them in my experience
Speaker 1: at least, they have a way of like you can
Speaker 1: see why the indigenous peoples of the America is often
Speaker 1: you know, ascribed to them the powers of tricksters, because
Speaker 1: they have a way of even like there's like this
Speaker 1: silver undertone to their coat mixed with other colors, and
Speaker 1: they have a way of kind of camouflaging themselves in
Speaker 1: the woods, but.
Speaker 4: Also in the city.
Speaker 1: They like or especially in the winter, they like almost
Speaker 1: like baffle the light and sometimes you won't even notice
Speaker 1: that it's a coyote kind of moving through your frame
Speaker 1: until they sort of stop and look at you and
Speaker 1: let you kind of see their eyes and rostrum and
Speaker 1: snout and then if you have a really like physically
Speaker 1: near encounter, right, you see how Yeah, I kind of begged.
Speaker 1: They often are at least the healthy ones, right, and
Speaker 1: their wolf like right, it's just like and they just
Speaker 1: like that experience of like, oh, like is still possible
Speaker 1: in this world to encounter an animal that, you know,
Speaker 1: another predator that bit in the right circumstances be able
Speaker 1: to make hewits prey, right, And it just kind of
Speaker 1: gets you out of your head and just seeing a wild,
Speaker 1: wild animal like that, Like I saw My first one
Speaker 1: I saw in the city was like crossing the railroad
Speaker 1: tracks behind an Amtrak station on a Sunday morning at
Speaker 1: the edge of downtown Austin, Texas. Wow, you know, fastest
Speaker 1: growing city of an America. And here's the like walking
Speaker 1: with my son to go get you know, get some breakfast,
Speaker 1: and here's this canvity crossing our path, and it really
Speaker 1: it takes you out of your head and kind of.
Speaker 4: Put your life in a in a different context. If
Speaker 4: that makes sense.
Speaker 2: No, it totally does.
Speaker 3: And I think it sort of takes away and not
Speaker 3: saying that you are but the arrogance of humans when
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, like, well, where's a arrogon
Speaker 3: and where a top of the food chain.
Speaker 2: But oh wait, there's a coyote near me? You know that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, one coyote is an intense two or
Speaker 1: three cooties, which I've experience is a lot more intense
Speaker 1: because they really could take you. Then on it sure
Speaker 1: you're hungry, and that's you have a little kid with
Speaker 1: you or something.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it really ignites primal feelings. Of course, well
Speaker 1: in the one time, and then on the one hand
Speaker 1: it's a little bit scary, but it's also like, oh afterwards,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I feel a little bit more alive.
Speaker 2: I knew you were going to say that.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, of course, because it was like your brush
Speaker 3: with nature. I'm sure like all your nerve endings are
Speaker 3: you know, all flaring, but it's your brush with nature
Speaker 3: and yeah, invigorates you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you just you stop like actively thinking in
Speaker 1: the way we kind of go through our lives. It's
Speaker 1: you're not language and words are no longer in your head.
Speaker 1: You're not kind of looking at yourself in some orbital mirror.
Speaker 4: You're just like in this immediate sensory experience and all
Speaker 4: encounters with nature. I think when you're sort of at
Speaker 4: least opening yourself.
Speaker 1: Up to them, even in like extremely urban environments, they
Speaker 1: can have that impact. Maybe none of the scary, but
Speaker 1: just like that get you out of your own self
Speaker 1: absorption and to just see the wonder of what's around
Speaker 1: you and see your place in the world, whether it's
Speaker 1: your places the descendant of Haman d who had to
Speaker 1: worry about the big leopards, you know, coming and taking
Speaker 1: them from their tree and having them for dinner, right,
Speaker 1: or just as you know, seeing how those insects that
Speaker 1: are pollinating the plants along the street in front of
Speaker 1: your house are actually like sustaining the entire ecosystem around you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 3: I mean I just remember interviewing years ago someone about birds,
Speaker 3: and she said, just go for a walk in the
Speaker 3: morning and pay attention to the birds, and you're going
Speaker 3: to hear so many different birds and different calls, and
Speaker 3: they're all talking if you pay attention. And I feel
Speaker 3: like that's the same thing that you said that you
Speaker 3: can across in this book. You just need to we
Speaker 3: need to pay attention to nature because it's there it's
Speaker 3: just I guess in our urban lives or just busy lives,
Speaker 3: most people just kind of ignore it instead of embracing it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and absolutely.
Speaker 1: And also there's a problem that I think a lot
Speaker 1: of us feel like we're taught that you have to
Speaker 1: have some special knowledge to be able to experience nature.
Speaker 1: Like you you go out, you talk about birders, and
Speaker 1: if you're not a burder and you go out with
Speaker 1: a bunch of burders, you may.
Speaker 4: Find that many of the serious birders.
Speaker 1: Are going to kind of almost have a competition to
Speaker 1: show who can name right that particular species faster than
Speaker 1: the others, and who has more command of the book knowledge,
Speaker 1: so that field or with plants or insects, so you
Speaker 1: name it trees.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, and so but you don't need to You
Speaker 4: can just go out like some eighteenth century naturalists and
Speaker 4: have your own experience and that's right. What the heck
Speaker 4: is that? That's really interesting?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you can go look it up right exactly? Yeah, Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: I joke in the book that I say that like
Speaker 1: taxonomy can be the enemy of wonder, meaning like having
Speaker 1: to like name the thing first often like gets in
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 4: Of just experiencing. Sure yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's fun to just go out,
Speaker 1: like you say, and just listen to see what you see.
Speaker 2: Sure yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think it goes full circle back to the
Speaker 3: arrogance of being a human. You know, let's compete with
Speaker 3: each other to see who can identify the most birds. No,
Speaker 3: just open your eyes and open your ears, you know,
Speaker 3: and just like take use all your senses and take
Speaker 3: in nature, because it is out there. Whether you're in
Speaker 3: suburbia or you're in a you know, an urban city,
Speaker 3: it's out there. And you know, your book describes it
Speaker 3: and explains to us really how it's it's very much
Speaker 3: out there, regardless of you know, whoever's listening to this
Speaker 3: right now where.
Speaker 4: They are, absolutely and it's easy to find it. You know.
Speaker 4: There's like easy little tricks like look for the nearest creek.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look for the nearest bit of watered other watershed.
Speaker 1: Look for that empty lot or that sort of building
Speaker 1: that hasn't been getting a lot.
Speaker 4: Of care, and you know, go to the edges of
Speaker 4: the park, not that they kind.
Speaker 1: Of you know, maybe step off the trail a little bit,
Speaker 1: or step off the sidewalk and see what you see.
Speaker 1: But those places are out there, yeah, as you noted
Speaker 1: every city and often like much closer than you think,
Speaker 1: and you see them once you start looking for them.
Speaker 3: So I gather, and of course that you feel positive
Speaker 3: about our future, yes, with nature and the environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I feel like people are waking up
Speaker 1: to the importance of like living in balance. I think
Speaker 1: that the experience during COVID lockdown, where so many people
Speaker 1: were suddenly and kind of abruptly liberated from the daily
Speaker 1: grind of going into the office and the constant you know,
Speaker 1: human bubble of our eyes on each other, the kind
Speaker 1: of constant surveilance of each other in a way that
Speaker 1: we do, and contemporary urban life.
Speaker 4: That were free to like, oh, like I could like
Speaker 4: take a little break now and go for a long Yes,
Speaker 4: structure my own day and go outside and see what's there.
Speaker 1: I think that really awakened people on a kind of
Speaker 1: a mass basis to like how easy it is to
Speaker 1: without giving up you know, you know, you can still
Speaker 1: get your work done, but you can integrate into daily life,
Speaker 1: even if it's just for a few minutes, little experiences
Speaker 1: of nature.
Speaker 4: It's out there to.
Speaker 1: Be enjoyed, and that doing so can really bring tremendous
Speaker 1: balance to life. And that by doing the additional work
Speaker 1: of like attending to our capacity to be better stewards
Speaker 1: of nature, to help do these little healing kinds of
Speaker 1: rewilding projects, you find you not only like helping nature,
Speaker 1: you're kind of helping yourself run a way. It makes
Speaker 1: you feel better and sure, and so I feel hopeful
Speaker 1: that absolutely that. I mean, people are just in the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom this earlier this year, they enacted legislation, this
Speaker 1: was under the Conservative government before the elections. Are they
Speaker 1: enacted new rules that for any new housing project or
Speaker 1: office real estate project bigger than a single home, you
Speaker 1: have to demonstrate after you finish the project that you've
Speaker 1: achieved a ten percent net gain in biodiversity.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, it's like wow, Well.
Speaker 1: That's like, you know, not a bunch of you know,
Speaker 1: you know, greenpeace types.
Speaker 4: These are like, you know, kind of conservative politicians.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so if and so if we put in place,
Speaker 1: you know, and like in this country, we have we
Speaker 1: have a real housing crisis, right especially an affordable housing crisis.
Speaker 1: And if we but you're seeing people talking about policy
Speaker 1: tools to not only like let's build more housing and
Speaker 1: let's work on rewilding the city at the same time.
Speaker 1: Those two things don't have to be at odds with
Speaker 1: each other. They can actually be harmonized. And so and
Speaker 1: you're seeing, you know, big projects like that all over
Speaker 1: the country, from Fresh Kills Landfill and Staten Island. It
Speaker 1: was like the main dump for years by Burroughs, and
Speaker 1: now it's this beautifully rewilded wetland with more to come. Still,
Speaker 1: but the Ballona wetlands in West la like between lax
Speaker 1: and Marina del Rey, used to be part of the
Speaker 1: oil patch and now it's this beautiful kind of restored wetland.
Speaker 1: And all over the great plains in between, we have
Speaker 1: all kinds into prairie restorations and river restorations and whatnot.
Speaker 1: And so when I see projects like that, I'm really
Speaker 1: I really.
Speaker 4: Get excited that.
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, a lot of people who've advocated,
Speaker 1: like on the on a kind of radical extreme that
Speaker 1: you know, the only way to save nature is for
Speaker 1: there to.
Speaker 4: Be fewer humans.
Speaker 1: And then they advocate a kind of a vision of
Speaker 1: a rewolded future that's sort of like after us.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, without us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm like, it didn't have to be that exactly.
Speaker 1: We can just learn to share our habitat with the
Speaker 1: other life around us and.
Speaker 4: Enrich that other life at our own lives.
Speaker 3: In the process.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again it goes full circle to that hope,
Speaker 3: because there is hope, and you just gave so many
Speaker 3: different examples. So you know, for my listeners, I would
Speaker 3: love them to read this book and learn all about it,
Speaker 3: because it doesn't matter where you live, whether you're in
Speaker 3: a city or in a suburbia.
Speaker 2: Your book really gives hope.
Speaker 3: And I have to ask you because I really totally
Speaker 3: believe in this and whenever I run into someone who
Speaker 3: believes of signs from nature. Towards the end, you your
Speaker 3: last chapter, you talk about black witches.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about what a black witches to our listeners.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, right after I sold the book and signed a
Speaker 5: contract to write it, my dad died eighty six and
Speaker 5: he lived a long line, thank you, and we were
Speaker 5: with him when he passed, and you know, it was
Speaker 5: it was an intense and beautiful but it was it
Speaker 5: was a you know, it was.
Speaker 4: Time and and anyway, and so we you know, took
Speaker 4: mom home and then came.
Speaker 1: Back down to Texas and he was up in the Midwest,
Speaker 1: and when I got home there was this one evening
Speaker 1: a couple of days there was this strange I thought
Speaker 1: it was a butterfly.
Speaker 4: It was like trying to get in the house.
Speaker 1: Every time I would open the door, like what is that?
Speaker 1: And they would like brush it off, like no, don't
Speaker 1: go come into the house, be come in the house.
Speaker 4: You make it trap and you can't get.
Speaker 1: Out, and and so then in the evening I found
Speaker 1: them off again and it was like just like waiting
Speaker 1: on the doors if it was trying to get out,
Speaker 1: get still trying to get in, and.
Speaker 4: It was kind of weird. I was like, Oh, it's
Speaker 4: not a butterfly, it's a moth.
Speaker 1: It's this really beautiful black almost kind of like that
Speaker 1: like you know, Silence of the Lambs.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking when I was reading,
Speaker 3: because I love that movie.
Speaker 1: So and so my mom is like one of those
Speaker 1: nature nerds, right, the people who you're like, what the
Speaker 1: hell is this? So I text my mom, but she's
Speaker 1: usually very slow to reply to my text, and she's
Speaker 1: like just like immediately goes that's a black witch. And
Speaker 1: then she tells me the the like Latin, you know,
Speaker 1: scientific name or whatever, and so I look it up
Speaker 1: and what turns out, the black Witch is the name
Speaker 1: of this moth. It has all these other names and
Speaker 1: the languages of other cultures, like the Haitians and the
Speaker 1: other people from French colonies. In the America is called
Speaker 1: it the socierre noir, which is the kind of version
Speaker 1: of that same word, and.
Speaker 4: Like the Jamaicans call it the duppy bat whatever that means.
Speaker 4: There's always cool names.
Speaker 1: But in all these cultures it's associated with the death
Speaker 1: of a loved one, right, and there are different variants
Speaker 1: of the like myths around it. And sometimes it gets
Speaker 1: into the house, I mean, somebody's gonna die, but mostly
Speaker 1: it means like it's like the loved one saying goodbye,
Speaker 1: and you know, you just like have a weird, like,
Speaker 1: you know, little experience like that, and I wasn't thinking
Speaker 1: of any of those things, and it just.
Speaker 4: Reveals to you that then you see how it's.
Speaker 1: A story that you know exists across all these cultures,
Speaker 1: and it tells you that nature does have this capacity,
Speaker 1: whether through know some kind of invisible hand you know,
Speaker 1: running the show, or just through the serendipity of life.
Speaker 4: And the kind of just.
Speaker 1: The way that things interact in the universe and ways
Speaker 1: sometimes you don't understand to send us these kinds of
Speaker 1: messages and provide us comfort and challenging moments, you know,
Speaker 1: sure physically or emotionally, and and those, yeah, those experiences.
Speaker 1: Since I've kind of gotten into doing this work, they've
Speaker 1: just been proven to be bountiful yes, and deeply meaningful yes.
Speaker 3: And it gave me chills to read that, and it
Speaker 3: gives me chills again to hear you describe it. But
Speaker 3: it's if you believe it and you keep your eyes open.
Speaker 3: I think the signs are there. Like you said, You've
Speaker 3: had even more signs from nature, and I just think
Speaker 3: people just need to be open to it because they
Speaker 3: are there.
Speaker 4: They really are. It's really astonishing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, Christopher, what even though this is really huge, your
Speaker 3: book and this project, but what's what's next for you?
Speaker 4: I'm I'm working with a colleague on a project.
Speaker 1: We haven't publicly announced yet, but it's it's a project
Speaker 1: to do and it's another colleague who's done similar kinds
Speaker 1: of work as me, who's also written novels and similar genres,
Speaker 1: and we both have these interests and we're going to
Speaker 1: we're working on a more like how to kind of
Speaker 1: rewilding book for the kind of the homeowner and the
Speaker 1: apartment dweller.
Speaker 4: Really digs into.
Speaker 1: This book is kind of telling a personal story and
Speaker 1: and it's kind of a field guide to wandering around
Speaker 1: in large part and and about kind of the you know,
Speaker 1: social and policy lessons you can find when you do
Speaker 1: this kind of work.
Speaker 4: This book will be more of like digging into like, Okay,
Speaker 4: you want to rewild your yard, and this is the
Speaker 4: region you live in, this is how you do how
Speaker 4: you do it?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I'm working on some new fiction projects that
Speaker 1: play with some of the same material through a little
Speaker 1: bit more made up kind of storytelling, and and doing
Speaker 1: a lot of work on sort of you know, some
Speaker 1: op eds and shorter works in a similar vein that
Speaker 1: will be come an online sam to try to help
Speaker 1: raise awareness in different ways and in different forums on
Speaker 1: this on this on these you know, I think valuable
Speaker 1: lessons that are out there to be learned for all
Speaker 1: of us.
Speaker 3: Sure, And so for my listeners who want to keep
Speaker 3: in touch with you on that, they can go to
Speaker 3: Christopher Brown dot com. Can they get your book, A
Speaker 3: Natural History of Empty Lots, also on your website, they.
Speaker 4: Can you can find it through my website.
Speaker 1: I have links to the publisher and to all of
Speaker 1: the bookstores, and really you can find the book anywhere
Speaker 1: bookstores are.
Speaker 4: Sold, online or in the in the real world as
Speaker 4: we like to call it.
Speaker 3: I like that. Well, thank you so much for taking
Speaker 3: the time, thank you for this book, and thank you
Speaker 3: for giving us all hope. You definitely gave me hope
Speaker 3: reading your book, and I'm sure my listeners will pick
Speaker 3: up the book and get the same feelings that I did.
Speaker 2: So thank you and I look forward. We'll talk again
Speaker 2: with your next project.
Speaker 4: Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much, Maria. I really
Speaker 4: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Okay, bye, all right.
Speaker 4: Bye bye. S Never beated Rader operator and this one
Speaker 4: see you, Rader Momigator