Category: Grow

I am not summer people

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I neglected to make plans for the summer. This obviously should have been worked out months ago…All around me people are busy relaxing. Somehow, they arranged to spend their weekends in July at the beach and are away in August…

As for me, I didn’t key into any of the warnings — the lists of must-try ice cream pop-ups and which beach towels to buy. The internet sets up a constant swirl of seasonal prep and appreciation — get ready, get ready, enjoy it, indulge, it’s the last gasp — and then suddenly, it’s gone, and it’s time to review the highs and lows.

Maybe seasonal shape shifting has knocked me off my pegs. Winter is snowless, spring is short, summer seems to have stretched outward, its oppressive heat hovers over the full calendar year like a threat. Now — who knew? — August is here and I haven’t begun to make the most of the season…

I haven’t been to the beach or the pool or the lake. The Weber grill is covered in dead leaves and there’s a wasp nest back there that I’ve been meaning to call someone (who?) to remove. I’ve spent no time on a boat, on an outdoor chaise or nestled in a hammock. I’ve worn neither gingham nor seersucker nor floppy hat. I forgot to obsess over Lyme disease, but it doesn’t matter because I have yet to venture into a summer meadow or grassy field…

I am not summer people, something hard to admit because summer is also the pushiest season, the most insistent that it be reveled in publicly. I’m not sure I have the time or energy required to pursue it, at least not in real life. I marvel at people with second homes when I can barely stay on top of my one, and summer traffic stresses me out…

And what did I miss, really? I got my insides churned to the point of nausea by the summer’s political cycle without going to Six Flags. The Olympics arrived online, no need to sweat it out in oversubscribed Paris. My nonexistent summer was if nothing else cheap…

Is this just regret masquerading as smug superiority and earthy thrift? Perhaps. But I can focus on that in the fall, which is apparently next month, and it is past time to get ready. I’ve seen the Halloween candy on the shelves.

— Pamela Paul, from “It’s Too Late for Summer Now.” (NY Times, August 15, 2024)

You think you know, but you have no idea.

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I’m trying to up my game. Expand the repertoire to include time lapse videos from still photos (like the shot of the cormorant up above from this morning).

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been watching Sawsan’s apprentice (aka Cara) set up the tripod, wrap its claws around the smartphone, level up the sight lines, take a deep breath… and hit the go button. And wait. And wait. And wait, somewhere between 2 to 2 1/2 hours until the sun is sufficiently up in the sky for the time lapse to catch the full end to end twilight to sunrise light show.

Cara can do it, repeatedly. Then any idiot can do this, right?

Continue reading “You think you know, but you have no idea.” →

Walking. Pulled forward by Good.

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It’s 2 a.m., and Wally’s licking my arm: “Sorry Dad,” he says, “Gotta go.” “Jesus, Wally, now?” And that was the end of that. 

I turn to the morning papers, blog posts and RSS feeds. Kaveh Akbar’s words echo: “Time flattens everything. Family, duty, whatever…There’s something comforting about that, something vast and, yes, inescapable. Like bright ink spilling over everything at once.”

I pull into the parking lot. Sigh, another day, another walk.

1502 consecutive (almost) days on my Cove Island Park morning walk. Like in a row.

I walk. 

Eyes burn, fatigue has set in.

65° F, 10 mph winds from the north — I immediately regret not bringing a windbreaker. Left it resting on the front seat of the car. 

I’m dragging my a** around the track, directly into the headwinds. Shiver. I could turn back, walk ¼ mile to the car, and grab the jacket. But that simple turn, a few hundred steps back, just seemed to be too much. 

Continue reading “Walking. Pulled forward by Good.” →

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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At 63, Louis-Dreyfus says she’s still trying to prove herself (“always”), and that “Tuesday” is part of that process. “I’m certain nobody would have considered me for that role 20 years ago, and that’s probably because they just thought of me only as a ‘ha-ha’ funny person.” She’s still interested in TV comedy, she told me, but she’s loving this stage of her career, and getting to do more. “I just want to try it all,” she says. “It’s good for my brain.”

“But anyway, I’m done with that. I’m done with self-doubt. I’m done with shame. I’m done with feeling weird about being ambitious. You know, the list is long. We all know what it is. I think for me, the takeaway is: Oh, we can be done with that sooner than we thought. We don’t have to take 60, 70 [expletive] years to come to that conclusion — I’m working on being done with self-doubt. I’m working on being done with shame. And I’m working really hard on finding joy. […]

There’s always room to learn more, and for me, that is an incredibly joyful adventure.”

— Lulu Garcia-Navarro, from: The Interview: The Darker Side of Julia Louis-Dreyfus”. (NY Times, June 8, 2024)

Lightly Child, Lightly. (The Darkness Around Us is Deep)

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Now I carry those days in a tiny box
wherever I go. I open the lid like this
and let the light glimpse and then glance away.
There is a sigh like my breath when I do this.
Some days I do this again and again.

— William Stafford, from “Remembering” in The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems.

Notes:

  • Poem Source: Thank you Beth via Alive on All Channels
  • Photo: DK 4:45am this morning at Cove Island Park. For more photos from this morning, click here.
  • Thursday Posts inspired by Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.