Rhymes with Camera: Wintergreen
Things do, in fact, grow in the winter. Gardens, for instance, and books, and thoughts deeper than the snow.
So, I’m a little late this month with the Substack missive. Like most of you, I’m deep in the trenches of sorting out this new world order that seems to want to remake US identity into… who even knows?
But I’m also deep in other trenches: revision for my upcoming book, Rain Shadows, keeping alive my winter garden, and prepping my cultivation station for seed starts.
It’s funny to imagine the winter as a dead time or place, when it’s actually one where seeds and roots are stirring, full of unfurling life.
The case for wintergreen
Allow me to present to you the metaphor of the common wintergreen plant: Genus gaultheria.
It’s quite common around here: an intrepid but pretty low-growing vine with red berries that spreads through the winter. The plants create an understory all winter that feeds and houses the critters. Its berries, leaves, and distilled essential oil are also used widely.
Did you know that if you bite down on hard wintergreen-flavored candy, it will spark? (Google triboluminescence.) Aside from being used for candy, it flavors root beer, baked goods, and chocolate; is a key ingredient in pain relievers; and you’ll find it in toothpaste and mouthwash.
What’s more, it’s used in natural pesticides (I faithfully rely on a natural “critter ridder”—in both spray and granular form—formulated using a base of wintergreen oil).
Wintergreen, in many ways, is in peak form during the winter.
So let’s dispel the notion that the winter is a time of limbo, of
lifelessness and lack, of infertility in our creative lives…
even that snow covering your backyard has a life-giving purpose.
And like the wintergreen, you’ll survive—maybe even thrive—because of it.
“On the grow”
Here’s a snapshot of what I’ve been growing (literally and metaphorically) in January:
Gardens
Yes, plural. I already grow several kinds of gardens: four raised beds for herbs and vegetables, a dedicated cutting garden, a native plant zone, and the general landscape. Still, I’m adding another in 2025.
Crossroads garden
It will take over the spot controlled by fireweed these last two years. I’m calling it a “crossroads garden” because it will be shaped by gravel pathways that form a peace sign ☮️, the center forming a crossroads.
Within and outside those paths, I’ll be planting flowers, bulbs, and herbs. At the far back corner beyond, a flat section will house the furniture and, with any luck, a power outlet for plugging in Xmas lights, computers, speakers, electric garden tools, and whatever else needs juice.
I’ll take before and after shots once I get going on this welcomed project. It’s worth noting that parts of that labor will make it into a short horror film I’m making called “At the Crossroads.”
Seedstarting
I’ve delayed my schedule for seedstarting in my “cultivation station” by an entire month. Why? Two reasons.
1. My seed starts do really well there, but if the spring doesn’t warm up in time, the seedlings get stuck indoors in a cramped space when they really want to be outdoors.
2. It’s been bitterly cold this season; my garage is just too cold.
I’ll take pics when that gets going!
Cold frame “greenhouse”
Ah, another potential solution for when seasons run amok around here. We’ve have such unpredictable weather these last few years that I struggle to protect plants from late-season heat, icy conditions for the winter garden, or too much/too little rain.
After the first of the year, a great deal on a greenhouse kit presented itself. This will serves as a new experiment toward a possible solution for many of these challenges. I have spent more time wrapping and unwrapping my winter garden this season against dry, sub-freezing temperatures than I care to repeat.
It’ll be north-facing, without heat or lights, which means it won’t be used as an actual greenhouse, but as a cold frame. A cold frame is structure usually meant to protect plants from winter weather. In my case, it can also be used, in the spring, to harden off plants, or in the fall, to house transplants from my raised beds. Sometimes I need to clear the boxes out and grow a nourishing cover crop, but I still have healthy plants, like my purple sprouting broccoli, that need a place to stay.
Just the prospect of having a safe haven for plants between seasons and growing phases promises less stress for both me and my plants!
Writing projects
My podcast co-host Clay Vermulm and I are deep in intense revisions on our upcoming story collection. Alpha and beta readers, a developmental editor, and a production house (Dark Forest Press) have all been lined up for the book-making process. It’s a lot of intellectual labor, but it’s also quite gratifying to watch these story babies come of age. I’m also glad for the distraction given the state of the world outside my front door!
RootLeaf Stories
It’s probably too early to talk with much detail about this project, which will be given more room and time to bloom in 2026. I’ve been conceptualizing a book of essays on the intersections between creativity, gardening, and spirituality for a good long while now. This was a series I previously slated for development in Medium, but I’ve since canceled that account and am looking for ways to reroot it elsewhere. Stay tuned!
Eminent Domain
Not that I’m going to get back to this novel-length work-in-progress any time soon (because I can’t even imagine having the headspace until August, maybe), but this magical realist, hope-punk threaded climate fiction narrative is still just as vivid a story as it ever has been. Part of the challenge for me lies in its structure, which will change drastically once I get back to it. Those roots are still growing underneath the ground (like wintergreen?), and I keep fertilizing it every chance I get.
Deep thoughts
Part of any growing season reconciles two aspects of the underground: the new growth and the dying off. Gardens need compost, open loam, and rest. These days, that’s how I’m feeling about social media and other technology access points. I’m managing their “die off” in order to allow space for other energies to thrive.
Meta
Buh-bye. I’ve left Meta products with the exception of Instagram, which I’ll hang on to a little while longer because there are some people and businesses who feel they can’t leave it (but you can!). Less attention paid to socials has been great! More time for hiking, creating, and living in community. To replace my morning “doomscroll,” I’ve adopted a new habit: word/number/card games to give me that little dopamine hit with my morning coffee instead.
Google
Buh-bye. By end of year (and ideally well before then), I will also leave behind most of my gmail. I’m tired of all the hacking attempts, of fighting to protect my OS and online accounts, of warding my phone against the merciless brute force penetrations coming from robo-cybernauts (living or fake). Email itself is an intolerable part of my daily regime—time to do a deep clean, then leave it for safer spaces. Y’all, if you could just let go of Google Drive, I’d be forever grateful, as it’s the only reason I stay.
‘Hermiting’ in community
Welcome! 2025 is both the Year of the Wood Snake and, from a numerology standpoint, a Hermit Year (because it’s a “9 year”). I couldn’t be more happy to embrace solitude right now, given the state of the union and my own demanding projects. When I’m ready to come out to play, it’ll be local. I’m talking about small businesses in my little town, my neighbors, the organizations I work with locally (the Seattle HWA, for instance), regional conferences, open mics, etc. We’re overdue to replace all that social media “connectivity” with the face-to-face.
Filmmaking
Welcome! I did it. I invested in a couple of cameras, a few lenses and some software! I’m chipping away at some new film projects. Currently in very early conceptual stages:
The aforementioned short horror film, “At the Crossroads.”
“The Time Garden,” a personal documentary about marking time that’s inspired by my late-great friend, Waverly Fitzgerald.
A poetry film! “Diary of a Syndrome,” a companion to “Look Up” I’ll submit exclusively to festivals.
Another poetry film! “Visibility,” a darker poem I’ll produce and submit to a horror series that airs on local access channels with hopes they’ll air it!
This web of my own weaving—of community and creativity, of narrative and image, of root and leaf—looks a bit like wintergreen, if I’m being honest: Colorful, dense, organic, healing, productive, and tenacious.
You can’t tell me there isn’t a spark to be found here.
Film projects
“Look Up”
Moss Farm in Montreal gave my short poetry film, “Look Up,” its first 2025 screening in January, making this its sixth appearance at film festivals internationally!
Beneath the Rain Shadow podcast
It’s not too late to listen to the horror writing podcast I produce with my co-host, Clay Vermulm. In it, we give each other writing prompts, talk about our adventures in new writing, and discuss the writing life and process. If you listen, you’ll get a sneak preview of our dark PNW tales, which will comprise the whole of our new collection, Rain Shadows, coming in June 2025! Go to Beneath the Rain Shadow.
Question: “Has anything scary ever happened on your silent writing retreats?”
Answer: Yes!
I can think of three different situations I endured while on solo trips to write, revise, or otherwise create.
The first one is most recent: a trip to Whidbey Island, where I stayed in a century-old fishing cabin that was wayyyyy back in the woods, not a soul to be found nearby. Cool, right? Not so cool when you hear all manner of racket on the front porch and think someone is breaking in… until, after peeking out the window, you discover it’s just a ginormous raccoon poking around.
The second happened at another location on Whidbey Island, a tiny house that’s rented strictly to writers (I highly recommend it.) The lodging is great, but my provisions were not. I managed to eat tainted alfalfa sprouts while staying there, didn’t know they had been recalled because I wasn’t watching TV or online, and was laid out with a major case of E. coli that finally forced me, after three hours of agony, to drive myself up island to the hospital in Coupeville for triage.
The third scary thing is perhaps the scariest of them all. I wrote about it in my essay, “Outer Limits,” which appears in True Stories VI. I won’t spoil it except to say that it took me a good ten years to get over my fear of solo hiking after that encounter, which involved “stalking animals.” Thankfully, I’m back at it again, at least for day hikes, but still.
I’m less likely to go on solo retreats anymore these days. It’s not a fear factor thing, though. The main reason I went on these excursions was to find quiet headspace and time to write; as a working mom, those conditions are hard to find. Now that I’m retired, I have a fantastic place to get the work done right here at home, so it seems less necessary.
Still, I’ll be going to RainForest Writers Village later in February (a group retreat) and will get to enjoy the sensation of new writing places and spaces, and among likeminded souls, which I find extremely energizing and inspiring.
LOCAL AUTHOR FOCUS FOR FEBRUARY 2025
One thing I hope to be better at doing this year is remember to support my writing peers more by buying, reading, and promoting their books.
To this end, I just added 46 new titles to The Sellman Shelf in BookShop featuring writing from authors with direct ties to Kitsap county. You should check out these authors! There are so many fine ones in my ‘hood that I’ll need a few months to add them all to The Sellman Shelf!
This month’s additions include work from Kathleen Alcalá, A.J. Banner, Anjali Banerjee, Bruce Barcott, Linda Bierds, Kendare Blake, Leigh Calvez, Carol Cassella, Megan Chance, and Jen Culkin. More coming next month!
Have other titles to suggest? Send them my way!
Might you have already read and enjoyed these books? Why not give their authors a nice review in BookShop? It really helps them to be found and appreciated by readers.
FEBRUARY: WHAT’S HAPPENING
Feb TBD: BENEATH THE RAIN SHADOW Season One in Review [link forthcoming]
Feb 15: Cascade Writers workshop—”Writing for Audio” with Travis Baldree & Donna Pho [link]
Feb 19-23: Rainforest Writers Village Retreat [link]
Feb 26: Creating Monsters with Liz Suggs [link forthcoming]
Mar 2: My next Rhymes With Camera Substack (I promise it will land on time in March!)
Mar 6: Spirits & Stories with the Seattle chapter of the HWA at Til Dawn [link]
Mar 23: Evan J Peterson reads from his novel, Better Living Through Alchemy at Friday Afternoon Tea in Wallingford… and I’m joining him! [link forthcoming]
For links forthcoming, you can always check out my detailed calendar
GARDEN TO KITCHEN
Lunar New Year Congee with Three Greens
I’m usually whipping up a batch of chicken soup at this time of year, but instead of the typical noodle-based or, sometimes, tortilla-based version, I decided to go with a congee as a nod to the Lunar New Year (year of the Wood Snake).
Congee, if you don’t know, is a simple chicken rice porridge that’s a common breakfast dish for many people in Asian communities. But you can also dress it up, so that’s what I did. After all, I need to find ways to use my winter garden vegetables, and this turned out to be a great option.
This year, my kale overwintered quite nicely, even through this recent cold snap, so I tossed a bunch of that into the porridge and garnished with two other items I’ve grown in my raised beds: scallions and edamame.
Full transparency: while I’m still digging up scallions, the edamame is not something growing out there right now. But it *could* be, at another time of the year. So my Three Greens are these three vegetables, but they could also be purple sprouting broccoli, bok choy, Chinese cabbage, cilantro, leeks, snow peas, or spinach. This recipe is really pretty flexible that way.
For good measure, I added mushrooms, plenty of my homegrown garlic, some fresh ginger, a soft-boiled egg for garnish, a spoonful of chili crisp, and a splash of sesame oil to give it a kick.
This one’s for all you Instant Pot owners. Super easy and the texture of the porridge is on point!
Click here to access this recipe through the dedicated Garden to Table recipe page.
Let’s stay connected!
I don’t think I’ve ever needed community more than I do now (read below for The Why). So, here are three easy ways to find me on the web:
Linktr.ee—for all the things!
Social media—BlueSky, Mastodon, and Substack Notes
Rhymes with Camera blog—Please note, I am on a blogging hiatus through the end of March 2025 while I move some big projects across my desk. This is a little later than I originally planned (Feb 15 was the original date), but I’ll have more time to establish new gardens, make headway on the films, and move Rain Shadows into production. Thanks for your patience.
The Why
I’ll not say much about the living nightmare that is world politics right now, as I think others have stepped up to say all the things more eloquently than I can.
What it comes to is this: I’m a recovering news junkie with a journalism background trying to find my peace, because I know that within it, I find my strength.
In previous years, I had the mental acumen and physical endurance to be an activist. My first effort at activism was breaching an abortion clinic picket at age 13 while escorting a loved one to her appointment; that was back in 1978.
Since then, I’ve protested, in one form or another, local book bans and censorship (1983); the White Train (1984); the Iran-Contra Affair (1985); the WTO “Battle of Seattle” (1999); election fraud (2000, 2016, 2024); hate crimes on Bainbridge Island (2001); Citizens United (2010); Standing Rock (2016); and the overturning of Roe v. Wade (Dobbs) (2022). (Probably not an inclusive list.)
I’ve also thrown my support behind Amnesty International; Union of Concerned Scientists; Indivisible; National Democratic Institute; Southern Poverty Law Center; American Civil Liberties Union; the ERA; Americans United; the Rainbow Coalition; Slow Food; the Rodale Institute; and the Seed Savers Exchange. (Probably not an inclusive list here, either.)
I’ve marched, held signs, wore the pussy hat, wrote the letters and emails, signed the petitions, volunteered, given money, and spoken up for others in sketchy moments and lived to tell these tales (only partly kidding).
These are always going to be things I care about.
But I’m now facing year 60; at such times, you reassess where your limited energy is best spent because “energy goes where attention flows.”
Having chronic illness shapes this trajectory because I need to practice self care daily (if not hourly). For me, it is MS, an arthritis trifecta, and neurological “stuff” which can change my priorities on a dime. Now, with raw new concerns about the availability of healthcare as I age, I must be strategic.
What do I want to be doing? Digging beneath surfaces and seeking answers in the skies, then telling those stories through words, pictures, and sound.
No, it’s not the urgent work that needs doing now, but it’s work that matters to me, that I can dedicate myself to for the purpose of making change.
So I salute the warriors out there protesting, demanding accountability from people in power, gathering and protecting all the communities facing uncertain futures.
My voice, in the meantime, will be dedicated to what lies beyond this shift—that time and space after “now,” when the course corrects. Because it will, I’m certain of it.
Yes, I’m hopeful, even if my stomach sours every time I glimpse a headline these days. (Maybe there’s a form of wintergreen for relief from that.)
Much love to you all… ~ Tamara
CNT: Tamara Kaye Sellman
321 High School Road NE
Ste. D-3. PMB 204
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
www.rhymeswithcamera.com (homepage and blog)
This post is chock full of goodies. Thanks Tamara!