mudamorphosis
a light contemplation on decomposition; music and books for March
Welcome to (almost) March, and welcome to my Substack. I’m Hope Anna, a journalist, naturalist-in-training and failed Jeopardy! contender.
This Substack will feature essays, fun facts, playlists and book reviews. Since we’re just getting to know each other, I’ll keep this first issue light. Today, you can expect:
ruminations on my dead mom and my dreams about decomposing
a soothing fertilizer playlist
books for becoming mud
jobs for the weekend
i dream of decomp, sponsored by Dunkin’®
Shortly before my mother started chemo, her favorite dog visited in a dream. He was waiting in the kitchen, accompanied by all her late animals. She woke the next day and told us that the family pets had come to shepherd her into death.
My mother was scared of her cancer, and terrified of chemo. A creature of duality, she both feared that the treatment wouldn’t work and dreaded living without hair. After being visited by her ghostly animals, she was even more convinced: the chemo would kill her faster than the cancer.
She was right. It did. She had supercharged, chemo-resistant non-small cell lung cancer that reacted to chemical therapy by blooming into widespread metastasis. She was dead within two months.
My family has a habit of unsettling, semi-prophetic dreams. Just before his heart attack, my father dreamt that my grandpa was outside his door, calling his name. A feline visitor warned him about my cat’s volcanic diarrhea while I was on vacation. My sister sees lighthouses and rough tides in her sleep, dreams of floods and invasions. Car crashes are predicted, dead loved ones come to visit, and imperative messages are delivered by obese Labradors.
Last night I dreamt I was mud, and everyone wanted to plant me in their fields. I woke up thinking, well, at least I had value.
:)
This martyrsome thought was fueled by:
cold turkey quitting my antidepressants because my (living) cat knocked the bottle under a cabinet for a week and I couldn’t reach it;
drinking a full Dunkin’®“Sabrina’s Brown Sugar Shakin’ Espresso” at 2 a.m.;
a 75-page treatise on the soil of the Virginia Piedmont region that I had to read for my naturalist program; and
feeling very underwhelmed by my consistent lack of creative output since age 16.
The result? Dreaming of becoming soil.
I don’t mean soil in a sexy way. We’re not talking about gothic, Hozier-fueled, laying down in the woods and decomposing into a beautiful mire. This was not an aesthetic visualization of the nutrient cycle, of joining my mother in the earth and emerging as thick, rich humus.
In my dream, I was a Kafka-esque pill bug, a mud-diving terrestrial crustacean, a humanoid armadillidium vulgare that was both decomposer and compost. I smelled like a broken sink disposal and my fingers crumbled into mealworms. Kick over a log and find me in the digestive tracts of the little orzo creeps fleeing from the light. Pale, crunchy, and imbued with the ability to peel up a spot of earth and sink down into it, I became part of the soil until I was amorphous, healthy loam to be dug up and thrown in tarp-covered truck beds. I was pulled apart piece by piece and spread across the state for use in growing carrots and ornamental cabbages and prize-winning dahlias. I was hunted and desired; I was fertilizer that could not fail, the key to producing something vital and beautiful.
It was wonderful. It was a message. Not from my dead mother, but from mother nature herself: break yourself down. spread your creativity. make a Substack.
I’m pretty sure that was the gist, at least.
a playlist for fertilizing
This playlist is not about mud, but the songs make me feel like topsoil (positive), or the sandy clay loam outside a southern dive bar that has become home to too many cigarettes and a couple of cicadas (also positive, but makes me cough).
Put on this playlist while you:
Garden
Work at the job you hate and dream of becoming a park ranger, even though those jobs do not exist anymore
Drink your third Dunkin’®“Sabrina’s Brown Sugar Shakin’ Espresso” of the day
Lay in the grass and pretend that you are a bog turtle, the state reptile of New Jersey and also the smallest turtle in the continental United States.
Are you short?
Are you secretive?
Do you like seed and berry bowls?
Do you find mud facials relaxing?
Are you under the age of 30?
Do you live on the East Coast?1
If you answered yes to all of the above, you may be a bog turtle!
books on becoming sludge
Want to #manifest into #muck? Here’s some eco-gothic and horror short stories to start you on your journey.
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister
I am become mud, literally.
This West Virginian eco-gothic centers on the claustrophobic dynamics of a family who live, work, and die on a bog. In return, the bog gives them wives—until it doesn’t. The Bog Wife has huge echoes of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived In the Castle, and is probably more responsible for my mud dream than Sabrina Carpenter was.
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
A friend told me that everyone should try ecstasy once in their life. I sort of agree, except instead of ecstasy, you should read Annihilation. It’s the same feeling.
Follow the members of a research expedition into the mysterious Area X, where ecological anomalies and contaminations abound. Annihilation is a classic for a reason—and is the reason why I decided to pursue naturalist education. If you’ve seen the movie, the book is completely different. If you’ve read the book, go watch the movie. Is it about climate change? Is it about cancer? Is it just aliens? Go find out.
Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver
Another eco-gothic, this time set in an Edwardian manor house deep in an English fen. Wetlands really lend themselves to a gothic genre, I suppose. Our main character is a young woman who lives alone with her overbearing father. Wakenhyrst tackles all the important topics: juvenile psychopaths, fen ghosts, and medieval demonic frogs.
Goddess of Filth by V. Castro
The nastiest book I’ve read in ages (positive). A speedy novella about teen girls summoning an ancient primordial evil, Goddess of Filth includes some of my favorite horror tropes, such as free bleeding into your mom’s flower bed and eating sins out of the mouths of priests.
A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
More Southern Gothic than eco-gothic, A House With Good Bones features an entomologist main character, haunted rose bushes, a turkey vulture, and the most horrifying thing man has ever invented: the North Carolina suburbs. Kingfisher’s modern gothic are always good for a satisfying, fun read.
jobs for the weekend
Master fertilizer Monty Don ends each episode of Gardeners’ World with his recommended jobs for the weekend. I am not a strappingly dainty English man with a closet full of linen, but I do like dogs and have seasonal depression, so we are basically the same.
Your marching orders are thus:
destroy your neighbor’s leaf blower: Every time I want to sit outside, there is a man with a leaf blower. These public menaces are no longer confined to fall. It is almost March, and they were outside this morning. This annoys both me and the leaves, who are great for fertilizer and a healthy ecosystem. Leave the leaves be!
go find a bug: This is a ploy to make you go outside. Seriously. Your mother is right and you really just need fresh air and water. I may be mud but you’re just a sentient plant. Go look at a bug and tell me about it. Or text your friends. Just saw an ant; effervescent.
change your sheets: This is more of a reminder to myself, but we should all do it more often.
tell your friends to subscribe to this Substack: Please. So much of my self worth depends on this.
Until next time,
xoxo, grime girl
Except Virginia. Bog turtles don’t like Virginia, especially northern Virginia—not unlike my friend Betty.
Betty is not a bog turtle, but she is from New Jersey. Check out her upcoming book, 32 Days in May!
Just the tutorial I was looking for! 💜 Brilliant, as always
frankly inspired