summer solstice

Summertime is lemonade stands and watermelon slices, their juice dripping all down your chin. It is anything refreshing, anything to offer a contrast to the sun beating down, the humid air soaking into your skin, reminding you that you are porous and alive. It is Mr. Freeze pops, it is you reaching into the box and taking whatever you get, but hoping so much that it will be blue, or grape, or red, or anything but orange. It is longing for the pool, whether or not you can swim. Summer is the sweating glasses of water or Kool-Aid, anything cold, anything you can drink up fast to regulate your body temperature halfway back to normal. It is lemon-anything, just like iced-anything... it is lighter meals and long, lovely days...

Summer is adjustment. It is lowering your standards from "comfortable" to "as comfortable as you can be." It is a shifting of schedules, a forced siesta in the midday heat, when naps sound good to every age, and especially to those at work. It is dimly-lit afternoons in rooms, in houses, behind blinds closed tightly to keep out the sun. It is fans doing their reverse dance moves to push and pull the air from the house, in the cool of the early morning and late evening. "Old-fashioned air conditioning," that is what they call it.  

Summer is wilting plants in the garden (they feel just like you do, but they can't go inside). 

It is dry, dusty dirt, like powder, coating everything, but you don't even mind, so long as it is not sticky. It is summer fruits - it is cherries, peaches, cantaloupe, and more - refreshing but sticky. Why do they always have to be so sticky? It is lessons in melting: you, me, the ice, my popsicle, the blue wax figurine you got in the machine by the dolphin tank at the zoo and left in the back window of our car. Summer is shorter tempers, it is fuses ready to blow like fireworks, just as it is longer days. The days are so long it seems as if it might be near impossible to be awake for all of the daylight hours. A summer's day seems like it could hold just about anything you could ever imagine. 

Summer is clouds passing rapidly before the sun, like a game of peekaboo, folding hands over the wide, bright eyes of the sun's brilliant glow. Summer is storms rolling in faster than seems possible at any other time of year. It is pressure building in the air, anywhere from hours to days, and then violently choosing its moment to break free and loose itself all around us. It is the only time you want to be in the rain; you stand and welcome a thorough soaking-through. 

Summer is as little clothing as possible: short, loose dresses to offer whatever comfort they can. It is boys of every age in shorts: no shoes, no shirt. Flip flop sandals, such funny, silly shoes: they are barely any shoe at all, though they do help with that matter of the hot sidewalks. Summer is dirty lines on tops of feet where flip flops rub the dirt into your skin. It is brightly-colored clothing and neon shades of nail polish and swimsuits, for better or for worse. Summer is bleached hair and weathered skin that covers over you like a costume made in the image of your most true self: young and tan and glowing, old and weathered and hardened?Summer is beaches you forgot existed, littered with so many bodies you begin to grasp just how many people must live in this city, and yet they are only a drop in the bucket of your comprehension. Summer is sprinklers - bless them! - it is baby pools and slip 'n' slides. It is outdoor festivals full of music and food (though wouldn't we all like them better in Spring or Fall?). It is sunbathing, an art you have never mastered, which is probably for the better. Burn and peel, burn then peel: this is your own art form. It is more freckles than you ever knew you had. Summer is sparklers in your fists, waving like wands as you proudly spell your name in the air. It is grand, impressive fireworks displays, seen and heard, but always from afar. Summer is everyone out on their porches, where they play more music than you could ever possibly hear all at once.

(For this themed post, I decided to set the scene for myself as I wrote: I sat outside in the heat of the day, in the full sun, with summer indulgences prepared to cool me off as I wrote. I cut up some watermelon - it was absolutely delicious!! - and made a pitcher of Cucumber-Mint Lemonade, which is one of my favorites, originally inspired by this post on the fabulous "A Beautiful Mess" blog! I hope you can cherish and nurture some of your own Summer moments to celebrate its official start!)

the write things: my journal

I am obsessed with things and objects of all sorts, but very few compare with my sentiments about my journal. For years, I jumped from journal to journal. Many were gifts (Thank you, to each of you who have given me a journal! They are some of my very favorite gifts!), and many were special finds on this trip or that, and the hunt was half the fun! Those 75+ journals represent every size, every style, every phase of my life since I began keeping track in this way. I love their range and variety; I love the way those journals catalog my life both inside and out! And it always felt like a part of my process: the way that I could start fresh with each new journal. But for the past nine months or so, I have grown quite attached to a new journal-system:

My new journal is a refillable faux-leather notebook made by Graphique de France, which is a company I have admired for many years, ever since I was assigned to manage the "Gifts and Stationery" department at Borders on State Street. But I had never indulged in any of their journals for myself - I simply admired them on the shelves and made sure they were prominently displayed to find their eventual owners. When my life recently changed directions and I decided to focus more specifically on my writing, I found a different Graphique de France journal at a Papyrus store. That journal was Tiffany blue, also faux-leather, and had the word "Journal" engraved in gold on the front cover. Instead of being refillable, its pages were bound inside. That journal somehow felt more "serious" and was a great companion as I began my new journey. I loved it so much that I went back to see if I could find a different color! My local Papyrus store did not have what I was looking for, so I settled for this one instead. I can not believe I ever loved it less than I do now...

The gold cover feels fancy, and is made from high-quality faux leather, which feels substantial and somehow "professional," and is lovely for my conscience, too! The paper quality is AMAZING, which is something that is really, really important for my aesthetic sense while writing. I like my pen to travel a certain way across the paper to keep my thoughts flowing.  And I am absolutely charmed by the paper's gold edges. You can find more info about the journal here. 

And to my surprise, I have fallen completely in love with the notebook-refill system! They really are the most sophisticated notebooks. They contain 144 pages, and I have an unofficial goal of filling one per month, which pushes me past my usual morning pages and challenges me to free-write more often! I order them in multiples, and watch for sales on the Graphique de France website to get the best deal I can. There are different sizes of refills, and many different colors and styles of covers, as well! Here is a new blank refill notebook: (don't you think it is excited to meet its words soon?!)

I am especially obsessed with this little "post" emblem on the front page of the journals. I have no idea what the significance is, but I like to imagine what it could mean!

One other thing I appreciate about this journal is that the "pockets" in the cover allow me to store bits of paper or additional notebooks inside. This notebook by Rifle Paper Co. fits perfectly inside the back cover of my journal! 

I have found new uses (like the one above!) for the assorted blank journals that are still waiting to be filled. I will often think of a specific purpose for a new journal, since I do best when keeping my thoughts as organized as possible, and it is as special as ever to make that important choice of which journal will be perfect for my purpose! And I think sometimes it allows those journals to stand out even more, to represent new themes or pursuits in my life as I associate those new thoughts with a specific cover or the paper inside. 

This journal has been a steadfast companion since we made our acquaintance in the shop nine months ago. I have converted to the notion of its consistency, the way it stays the same, even as the words and pages take turns living inside. I still feel just as excited to begin a new blank journal, but I don't feel as much nostalgia as I did before, to let the former take its place among my other filled journals. The consistency of this journal reminds me of the consistency within myself as well: the single, focused dream I have embraced as my purpose. It reminds me to write.

inspired: Writing Down the Bones

Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, was the first book about writing I read, many years ago. It remains the most liberating and influential work about writing I have ever read. My friend Emily, who is a poet, recommended the book to me when I was first beginning to articulate my interest in being a writer.  I read the book on a trip to visit my grandparents, who live in a small town in Northwest Wisconsin. I began reading in my bedroom at their house, and the book caught me like wildfire. At my first opportunity, I ventured into town to find a place to sit and write, to let the flames of inspiration consume me and see where they might lead. It is the first time I ever gave myself over to writing, rather than sitting down to write with a specific purpose or intention. I have loved many books throughout my life, and I think every book I read impacts me in some way or another. But this is one of those rare, few books I can say truly changed me. 

The book is a long-standing classic in writing texts, published over thirty years ago, when I was just five years old. I think you would be hard-pressed to find a writer who has not come across the book at one time or another. But I continue to marvel at its endurance over time, and at the consistencies it exposes in the craft of writing as well as its obstacles, through this timelessness. 

The book is structured into very, very short chapters - most are one to three pages. The chapters are intended to be read in whatever way you choose, in sequential order or on a whim, based on their subject. In this way, the book invites an easy return to re-read its chapters bit by bit, like meditations or affirmations. Here is one of my all-time favorite passages from Writing Down the Bones, found in the chapter "The Power of Detail": 

“Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist - the real truth of who we are... We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing.”

I have written these words on a page that I posted in the front of my journal, as a reminder for every day's new writing-beginning. There are more brilliant passages in this book than I could even begin to recount, and I am sure I will continue to refer back to its wisdom often in my writing journey.

For many years since that first reading, and through many varied stages of dormancy in my writing practice, I failed to pick the book back up. About a year ago, I saw a new, smaller, hardbound edition of the book while browsing in a bookstore. Though I knew I owned the original paperback copy, I had long ago misplaced it, and had been thinking of the book often, wishing I could find it again. I added the new version to my wish list, and was delighted when Ryan picked it up for me this past Valentine's Day! He inscribed the front of the book with a reminder of his belief in me. Three months later, I finally began to share my writing. 

In this new phase of my writing life, I have often turned to this book for nurture and inspiration. I can honestly say that it never, ever fails to reignite the flames of passion and purpose I feel for writing. Each chapter I read teaches me something new, or helps me view something else in a different light. Often, it simply (but importantly!) reminds me of something I already know, but am so quick to forget. Any day that I am stuck, I return to read its gentle and substantial chapters, to see what might help me break out of my own blocks and begin once again.


(Here is a link to the bookstore, Vroman's, in Pasadena, CA, where I first saw the book.  It is an incredible independent bookstore with an impressive selection of titles! And check out Emily Bobo's amazing poetry in this published volume - it is exquisite!)