Sam Pickering wrote "July, " as he writes all of his essays, with the purposes of satisfying his restless nature and of glorifying the ordinary things in life.

"Once you begin to look at the life about you," he said, "then you find the world is full of stories. Writing gives me a reason to get out of the house and wander. I always start with a title, and then I go ramble. In 'July,' I wanted to describe a bit of the month. I wanted to look at my ordinary days and see if I could make them interesting."

The one-word title, "July," is typical of his essay-titles, he says, because a one-word title is a catch-all tool: it lets him include almost anything he notices on the "rambles" and "wanderings" he takes to gather his material. On his excursions, he looks closely at the natural world, memorizing names of plant and animal life.

An ironic aspect of Pickering's "wanderings" is that he never ventures far from home-if he ventures from home at all. While working on "July," he took notes about his ordinary activities. "July" is filled with careful, minute descriptions of the natural world in Pickering's own back yard.

Pickering makes story material out of his everyday life by getting nose-to-nose with commonplace objects in his immediate environment. For example, "July" contains many lists of plant names. Explaining these lists, Pickering said, "When you memorize the names of flowers, you begin to really see them."

The characters in Pickering's essays also come from his everyday life. "July," like all his essays, tells the stories of people Pickering meets while going about his ordinary business. "For instance," he said, "I gave blood in that essay-that's an ordinary thing to do. The more you keep track of ordinary things, like giving blood, you realize that during your ordinary days you meet all sorts of interesting people. You realize you live in a community, in a fabric of relationships, and suddenly a very dull, ordinary July becomes full of odd, interesting people."

"I think success in life," he concluded, "is looking around you and finding the things to celebrate." For students learning the art of the essay, Pickering gives this advice: "If you don't know the names of flowers near your house, it seems to me you shouldn't be holding forth about the meaning of existence, because you don't even know what's in your own back yard."