Plants and blogs

Every once and a while over the years, a well-meaning friend will gift me a plant. The beautiful living gift is usually accompanied by words of assurance: “it is so easy to take care of it” or “it’s truly unkillable” or “you can just plant it in your yard, and it will do great.”

Friends, I am sorry to confess the awful truth: I always kill the plant. It’s never on purpose. But death comes to all plants in my possession. Always. Usually swiftly, although a few struggle for a while before succumbing to their inevitable fate. I just don’t seem to do well with taking care of non-human life forms.

Except once. One summer, I planted okra along with some other things in an exceedingly optimistic attempt to not kill all the plants, just this once. Then I promptly went on with my life and forgot all about it. Ignored and forgotten, the okra thrived. The beautiful stalks grew tall, glorious, defying the extreme Georgia heat and lack of water. Looking judgmentally at the withered zucchini below that just couldn’t cut it in such an austere regime of neglect, the okra reigned, supplying us with delicious dinner sides until the autumn cold set in.

It seems odd to compare writers to okra, but there is sufficient resemblance. Most of us work on our own with minimal TLC; in fact, some may prefer it that way, like okra does. Extreme introverts and semi-feral, many of us have many other obligations for work and family. We write in the margins of our schedules, carving out time to express ideas we love in the few minutes a day that we can devote to this activity. And yet, these little things, those labors on the margins, add up to results that can be unapologetically tall and glorious.

June 1^st marked the four-month mark since the launch of the Arena blog. I have now kept a blog alive longer than any plant, except okra. I think this is a worthy milestone to celebrate. But the reason this blog is thriving has little to do with me and everything to do with the wonderful writers who have kindly used some of their writing-in-the-margins time to share their wisdom, ideas, and dreams here. Intended to serve as a sort of organic side-kick for Current and a fellow pilgrim to John Fea’s long-running The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog, this new blog has been a more informal and highly eclectic place to explore and comment on current events, historical topics, interesting books in progress and others already published, life and vocation, parenting and family life. Seeing how many wonderful people it takes to make this happen, by the way, has given me yet more appreciation for John Fea, who runs his blog single-handedly.

I am grateful for Elizabeth Stice, who has been a steadfast Monday presence on this blog. Also, if you are reading this and happen to be an editor for a press, commissioning Elizabeth to collect some of her hundreds (might be over a thousand at this point?) essays over the past few years into a book would be a very worthwhile endeavor. I, for one, want that book! Someone, please make this happen! A self-described “fox rather than a hedgehog,” Elizabeth writes thought-provoking and wide-ranging essays both here and elsewhere, providing insightful social commentary on a number of topics—from higher education to AI to localism, family, popular entertainment etc.

Okay, so I just expressed my gratitude for Elizabeth ahead of my appreciation for my own husband, who also has been a regular writer for this blog, writing almost weekly, and producing some of the most poignant pieces on here—like his essay “Are local family ties worth the sacrifice of a career dream? Maybe so”

Rounding out the blog regulars are Dixie Dillon Lane, an American historian with a special interest in the history and practice of homeschooling (check out her recent essays on this for Current—Part I and Part II); and Jon D. Schaff, a political scientist with a love for the humanities and the liberal arts broadly defined. Both are prolific scholars and creative thinkers—I would encourage you to read their respective Ideas in Progress posts, here and here.

Current writer John Haas also regularly contributes short and hard-hitting reflections on articles or news developments to the Arena, greatly enriching this space. Last but not least, the vision for this blog has included regular space for guest posts, and these have been an absolute joy—just scroll through our full list of posts, and you will see.

So now, here we are, entering the summer season. What might you expect? Since all but one of the Arena regular writers are homeschooling parents (total coincidence! This was not a qualification requirement to write for this blog! And, to be clear, we have nothing but respect and admiration for our public and private school teaching friends, who are doing extremely important work!), we are planning to run more homeschooling-related content in July, as we think ahead to the new school year. There will be also be lots more book-related posts and guest interview posts–including some with teachers.

On this note, I would like to conclude with an invitation. If you are writing a book or have a book forthcoming and would like to be interviewed or to write a book launch post, I would love to hear from you. Or, if you are a teacher or professor and would like to participate in an interview about your teaching and your broader interests and ideas, I would love to hear from you. What was your favorite class this year—or, even, in your entire career? I want to know, and our readers do as well. And if you are a regular reader and have an idea for a topic you would like to see covered here at the Arena, I would love to hear from you. This last one is basically an invitation for YOU to tell me (with the usual fine print that we can’t guarantee anything): what would you like us to write about this summer, in particular? And (if you have a specific writer in mind) whom would you ideally like to write about this topic?

Ask, and (maybe) you shall receive.