Happy summer solstice, dear readers! I am excited to connect over a grab bag of links and recommendations as I metabolize our recent travel abroad and aim to be present for the summer of change that I’m amidst. First things first – remember pillars of support? Mine are healthy food, movement, and time to think. I have been really good about the healthy food and movement, and less good about carving out time to think. Summer is the extrovert’s season in so many ways, and it has gotten all the more performative with social media – who has the cutest props to evidence that they are having the best summer ever?!
Instead of waiting until the end of summer to meet my needs, I am trying to find the quiet places within summer. So far the quiet places are: in a physical book, in water (mostly just my bathtub at sunset), and in embracing my jet lag that has me up with the birds at 4:30. If you are feeling dysregulated by the lack of schedule but also worried that you’ll miss the precious summer by wishing it was something it can’t be (my confession) – return to your pillars of support for some internal regulation.
To play
We love to play games (arguing the whole time) on summer evenings. Recently, when I got my way we played Golden Girls trivia (for superfans like me it’s called “Any Way you Slice it” ). When my kids got their way we played Cheating Uno (cheat however you want, but you have to draw two if someone catches you). I relish the silly, exasperating time together that is not feasible any other time of year.
To read
Anything by Barbara Brown Taylor from your local library. I say library because libraries feel like summer to me as the kid of an avid reader-teacher-librarian. In my childhood summers we went at least weekly and the library is a perfect summer retreat: icy cold, quiet, tangible. As an adult I read only nonfiction: religion and spirituality, memoirs. Sometimes I avoid meeting my daily reading goal because what I’m interested in is not fluffy. Rather, it is as my younger brother is oft-quoted as having said about the gallon of milk he was trying to carry as a preschooler, “too heaby.” Barbara Brown Taylor’s words are grounded but light as silk: anchored in spirit. I’m only slow to read her work because I don’t want it to end. Summer can be full of nostalgia but Barbara Brown Taylor makes me slow down and, as she says, wonder what I’ve done right to be right where I am.
To follow
This ongoing conversation from Colorado Public Radio about the afterlife.
Anne Helen Peterson’s Instagram coverage of Joyful World Cup Togetherness.
To do
Some of these are a little unfair, because they combine “to read” with “to do,” but that’s life.
This piece on the Save Our Bacon Act by Erza Klein is worth it. If you are disturbed by it, write or call your senators and tell them that you want the Save Our Bacon Act out of the Senate Farm Ball because you support states’ rights and small farms.
Investigate your moon sign! This spookily accurate article feels like the cheat code to understanding me and at least one of my kids; I’m curious to hear your thoughts about your sign.
Get a pen pal: check out Cartas de Paz to see how you can support those in immigrant detention centers.
Summer is the perfect time to go on an Artist’s Date! Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Dates are about connecting with your inner artist, a younger you before you thought (or someone told you) that you weren’t “good” at art. Sometimes an Artist’s Date looks like doing what you were going to do anyway (errand, exercise, etc.) but committing to noticing what you notice while you are doing it instead of distracting yourself through it. If something occurs to you as a worthwhile Artist’s Date, just do it! If selecting an Artist’s Date feels overwhelming, look here for inspiration. Then pick a date from the list and just do it!
To ponder
Precarity. I’m thinking about precarity now and always. Precarity is the condition of life we spend so much time and energy fighting. If you see people hoarding resources, possessions, accolades, or appearances it’s often a maladaptive response to precarity (guilty!). In the current vice president’s new memoir, a big theme is that he is “permanently terrified things will unravel.” It sounds like living within a trauma response to precarity.
Life is hard and scary. We should shore up our families, local communities, nation, and global community to be as stable and sustainable as they can be. But I’ve been alive long enough to know that living in permanent terror of things unraveling – of the precarious nature of life – is no way to actually live. It freezes people, not just in fear but because everything seems pointless. Further, it makes people live into their worst impulses instead of their best. It makes them justify hoarding and selfishness. And maybe worst of all, it makes us miss both the blessed gifts of life and our ability to take whatever small actions we can amidst our general condition of precarity.
Two precarity experts are Dorothy Day and Oliver Burkeman. Day was a Catholic activist committed to live in community with those suffering in the Great Depression. She held the firm belief that life IS precarity but she saw it as freeing: if life is precarity, nothing lasts, so what can we do but be good to each other?
In his recent newsletter, “The end isn’t nigh,” Burkeman argues, “…you might dedicate yourself to your work in the world not in hopes of one day scrambling to place of final security, but because doing good things for each other in conditions of insecurity is just what we do. Look back at your life to date, and you might even conclude that, so far, you’re handling it all rather brilliantly.”
Love you
Be well, sweet readers. Let me know if anything resonated with you. I’ll see you in July but hope to hear from you before then!
