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Women's Legacy Project > Blog > BE > Mothers & Others > Ancestors > Cultural > I Am Here as She Is Here and We Are All Together

I Am Here as She Is Here and We Are All Together

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womenslegacy

13 Comments

JW Marriott LA Live Lobby Bar

JW Marriott LA Live Lobby Bar


I’m writing in the lobby bar of the J.W. Marriott in the L.A. Live complex getting ready for the BlogHer annual conference to commence tonight, Thursday, August 4th.  I arrived here in LA on Tuesday night, but went to Long Beach via the metro and a bus on Wednesday to catch a ferry to one of the Channel Islands, Santa Catalina Island.
Yesterday was a personal pilgrimage to a place where a woman who influenced my understanding of what how a woman, a writer and a scientist could combine these constraints. She was a writer of simple, and sometimes saccharine tales of the midwest of her childhood in the mid-late 1800s. Gene Stratton-Porter wrote best-selling novels between 1904 and 1924. She also leveraged her celebrity and ability to sell books with her publishers so that she was able to write and publish an amateur science nonfiction book between each novel.  
I grew up knowing about her forays into swampy and wetland areas where she used ethological practices to document the hatching of birds and other previously undocumented behaviors. The techniques she used would not be put into common practice until the likes of Jane Goodall began using non-intrusive methods to document animal behavior.  Stratton-Porter also influenced Rachel Carson to work non-destructively within the living systems she loved and documented.  Without the generations of influence of women who understood the world in different ways than the male-dominated science and governmental systems that controlled science and our understanding well into this century, we would live in a poorer world for lack of the nuanced understanding they brought to us and interjected about living systems.  Their influence is still unfolding.  They are all with us still.
I grew up amid remnant bits of swamp in the waterlogged mid-west, I know the settings of Stratton-Porter’s books.  I grew up in them. I wanted to see the island she grew to love later in her life.  So I took an afternoon trip the day before the conference started to Catalina Island in the Channel Islands off the California Coast.
I whole-heartedly recommend taking the ferry from Long Beach to Catalina.  Here is a brief overview of my all too brief of a trip.
The ferry in the bay at Avalon.

The ferry in the bay at Avalon


 
Rugged cliff with house overlooking Avalon and bay. Catalina Island.

Rugged cliff with house overlooking Avalon and bay


 
View from the beach in Avalon on Santa Catalina Island

View from the beach in Avalon on Catalina


 
Along a street in Avalon on Santa Catalina Island

Along a street in Avalon


 
From inside a sushi place on the beach at Avalon on Santa Catalina Island

From inside a sushi place on the beach


 
Arriving back at Long Beach at Sunset.

Arriving back at Long Beach at Sunset


This trip oriented me in an unanticipated way for the largely female attended conference I attended over the next three days.  For me, and perhaps through me, the past all the way back to the 1800s touched the future of women’s communications throughout the 21st Century.  Gene would be proud.
 

Categories: Cultural, Dispatch, Inspiration, Intellectual, Role ModelsTags: Avalon, BLogHer, BlogHer16, California, Catalina Island, Channel Islands, coastal island, day-trip, ferry, Gene Stratton-Porter, generations, J W Marriott, Long Beach, pilgrimage, SheKnows Media

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Carol Cassara

    August 16, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    I’m sorry. All i can think of to say is … “I am the walrus…coo coo ca choo….” I think I need a nap.

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      August 16, 2016 at 4:03 pm

      I know… I know… I couldn’t help myself.

      Reply
  2. Helene Cohen Bludman

    August 16, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    Sounds like a great adventure and a fascinating place to visit. Your photos are beautiful.

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      August 16, 2016 at 4:04 pm

      It was fun! Images cooperated, which isn’t always the case for me.

      Reply
  3. Mary

    August 16, 2016 at 5:06 pm

    Hi Nancy, it was so wonderful to meet you in person at Blogher. I’m so sad we only bumped into each other once! It has been a few years since I have been back to Santa Catalina. Hmmm… Maybe I’ll plan a weekend there soon.

    Reply
  4. Tam Warner Minton

    August 16, 2016 at 5:23 pm

    Hoping to be there next year! Hope it will still be in beautiful California! Your friend sounds awesome!

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      August 16, 2016 at 9:25 pm

      They move BlogHer around, but Catalina won’t move! Have you dived there?

      Reply
  5. Lois Alter Mark

    August 16, 2016 at 9:03 pm

    I loved reading this after our discussion at dinner. Wish I’d been able to go to BlogHer this year so we could hang out more!

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      August 16, 2016 at 9:23 pm

      Maybe I will come to San Diego in 2017. We can do our own mini-blogher!

      Reply
  6. sue

    August 16, 2016 at 9:08 pm

    Love your photos and the story of Gene Stratton-Porter. I would have loved to attend the BlogHer conference – it would be great if it came to Australia.

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      August 16, 2016 at 9:21 pm

      I see women’s history and networks everywhere. They should do a satellite BlogHer!

      Reply
  7. Rebecca Forstadt Olkowski

    August 16, 2016 at 11:20 pm

    Catalina is one of my favorite places to visit. I live in LA I’ve also taken a boat from Ventura to the Channel Islands. They’re all different and beautiful. Glad you were able to do that before the conference started.

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      August 17, 2016 at 9:22 am

      I love islands. There is just something about land and water so obviously shaping each other that intrigues and inspires me. I’m definitely going back.

      Reply

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