Thoughts I've Had About the Internet

1. All of these artists and writers I follow are so productive- they're always sharing new work, so they must not struggle with their creativity ever! 

2. Maybe my life would be better if I threw my phone in a lake and lived the rest of my days in a cabin in the mountains without internet

3. Why does it feel like everyone is yelling at each other?

4. I hate it when someone with a large platform posts something obviously just for fun/to document their life, and someone else feels the need to comment something like, "I'm SO disappointed to see that you're still using plastic straws! (or buying fast fashion, or ordering from Amazon, or not eating vegan/organic/raw/whatever, or supporting ____ company with terrible labor practices, etc. etc). We should all try to make ethical choices, but trying to make EVERY choice ethical all the time is exhausting and frankly sometimes financially/emotionally/logistically impossible in the current world we live in.

5. Why does every cooking blog make you scroll for miles to get to the recipe?

6. Do people even read blogs anymore? Why do I still have one?

7. The truth is I want to have an online following. The truth is I'm terrified that the things I have to do to get an online following (post more, be relatable, promote myself/my work) will look weird and self serving to the people who already follow me (especially people I know in real life).

8. Instagram is horrible and fake. Why are we all pretending that it's real???

9. Instagram allows you to glimpse the world through other people's eyes. It's the most creative social media platform.

10. Social media would be so much easier if I was a visual artist instead of a writer. Writing is so solitary and slow and not as aesthetically pleasing as art.

11. I love that Patreon allows creative people to have supplemental income, and it seems like a really great tool. But, like with anything on the internet, will it be around in 20 years? What if it goes the way of Vine? What if all of those people pour their art and their livelihoods into this thing and then one day it's gone?

12. When I was a kid, I wrote journal entries from my dog's POV and posted them on Dogster, which used to be a sort of Facebook for dogs (aka: their owners. Obviously). Now, if you go on Dogster.com it's just an online magazine about dogs? All of the community pages have been taken down, including the rather large number of entires I wrote when I was eight or nine. For some reason that makes me kinda sad?

13. Question I think people should ask more: What's your favorite website? (Mine is Brain Pickings)

14. I love cute animal videos as much as the next person. I HATE the sappy music that plays in the background of almost all of them.

15. The roller skating community is the friendliest, most supportive internet community I've ever encountered. It's where I feel the magic of the Internet the most strongly.

16. There's nothing more disheartening than reading the comments made by guys on a video of a girl skateboarding. (Watch this video for a taste.)

17. Why do I feel that little zing of happiness when I read something/see a meme that I relate to? Even when it's something small and stupid. Why do we crave that little bloom of recognition so much?

18. I'm going to do a social media detox. *5 min later* How did I get on Instagram without even realizing it?

19. Maybe if I gave up social media I'd have more time. Or maybe I'd just find a way to waste it on something else.

20. I still sometimes have these moments where I'm in awe of what the internet can do. You can type anything (anything!!) into the search bar, and there are thousands of people talking/writing about that very thing. You can learn anything you want. If you're curious about something, all it takes is a few clicks. It's the ultimate knowledge tool - bigger than any library in the world. And isn't it just so HUMAN of us to have made this incredible knowledge machine, and fill it with cat videos.

Books & Clothes

My parents are planning to move soon, and we've been feeling overwhelmed by sheer amount of stuff we own, so this past weekend we made a pact to clear out the two things that take up the most room in our lives: Books and Clothes.

Books and clothes. I often joke that I could almost be capable of becoming a minimalist, if it weren't for all the books. I love my bookshelves. I find the presence of all those words, written by some of the people I admire most in the world, extremely comforting and inspiring. I also have a very hard time walking into a bookstore and leaving empty handed. Needless to say, working at a bookstore has just thrown fuel on the fire.

I know too that I don't like being surrounded by books I know I'm never going to read. Or books I have read but only remain in my memory because they're sitting on my shelf. In an uncharacteristic turn of events, I was actually excited to get rid of books.

A cute outfit and some current reads

Clothes, on the other hand, were a little more amorphous. I tend to go through phases where I'm obsessed with clothes and phases where clothes are simply functional. The obsessed phase looks like this: pinning style ideas on Pinterest, pining after gingham tops and velvet dresses, mixing and matching things in my wardrobe in a half-desperate attempt to shake things up. The "meh" phase looks like this: not caring if my Darlingside t-shirt is too informal to wear to work, ignoring half the jeans in my drawer and alternating between the two most comfortable pairs, and generally not being bothered by clothes except when putting them on.

Recently I've found myself at an interesting cross roads with my wardrobe. A lot of the things I wear are perfectly acceptable for a college student (and frankly, above the "t-shirt and sweatpants" standard of most college students), but not quite for a young-adult woman with a big-girl job. While the bookstore is pretty lax in its dress-code, the things I'd wear in the summertime in my home just don't quite cut it. It seems obvious to me now that as your life changes, you clothes might have to also, but seeing items that I used to wear constantly relegated to "weekends only" was a little disconcerting.

That's not to say that I thew out all of my summertime clothes (you can't live in Houston without a great pair of shorts and a breezy tank top). It's not even that my dividing line was really "work appropriate" vs "not work appropriate" because a lot of the things I own could go either way. Cleaning out my closet made me realize that maybe I'm growing out of my wardrobe. A lot of my "summer" clothes feel like high school me, and a lot of my "work" clothes feel only tangentially like something an adult would wear. I'm in this weird in-between phase where I don't want to dress like an old lady but I also want to look a little more put-together than my high school self. And if my style isn't "college girl chic" anymore, then what is my style?

Am I overthinking this? Probably.

Am I strangely fascinated by it? Absolutely.

So what did I do when faced with the task of cleaning out both my closet and bookshelves? I went with my gut, and I'm pretty happy with the results.

The books were easier than I thought they'd be. I gave myself room to let go of books I'd once wanted to read but not longer had any desire to. I gave away books I'd read but hadn't loved, or that I knew I'd never want to re-visit. I did a slight re-organization of my shelves so that now I have one full shelf and two half-full bookshelves with room to grow. (As they inevitably will ;) The one nearest to my bed only has books I'm most excited to read right now. If that changes before I get to them, they either get donated or put on another shelf until I feel like reading them again. With so many new books coming into my life, I either have to read faster, be vigilant about culling, or both. Preferably both.

[Side note for people who care about what I'm reading right now (pictured above): Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, Too Much and Not in the Mood by Durga Chew Bose, and Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. Annihilation is currently at the top of the list because I'm planning to go see the movie this weekend and what if I actually read the book before the movie! That never happens! Wish me luck :)]

Anyway, what I'm trying to say with all of this rambling is that cleaning out my bookshelves felt really good. I'm now surrounded only by books I love and that I'm pumped to read. Strangely enough, cleaning out my bookshelves felt a little bit like de-cluttering my brain. Now, when I look at each book on my shelf it sparks something: whether that's an idea I had while reading it, or simply excitement to pick it up.

As for the clothes, I think I did well pretty well. I got rid of the things I never wear, kept a few things for sentimental value, and even though I know my wardrobe won't change overnight, it's heading in the right direction. Right now I'm in the "meh" phase when it comes to clothing but I know when the pendulum swings back towards "obsessed" I'll be ready to tackle all of my wishy-washy feelings about clothing and growing up and what I want my wardrobe to say about who I am. I also think it's important to note that I don't hate all of my clothes. In fact, I like most of them. But I'm looking forward to seeing them evolve and change with me.

Some people might think it's silly to put so much thought into inanimate objects, but I would argue that books are anything but inanimate because they engage our minds so fully, and that clothes serve a similar function because they are an active form of self expression -- they literally move with us. I don't know where any of these thoughts will take me. If they don't go any further than  "thoughts I had while cleaning out my room," so be it. But something tells me there's more to it than that. And I'm going to follow it wherever it leads.

Bitter Sweet (Or Songs I've Cried To)

I. It is March of 2017. I am in the bedroom of my on-campus apartment. It is chilly outside, and I'm longing for sunny days, for the first time I can wear dresses without tights to keep my legs warm, for freedom, and in this case: the unknown. My first summer not bookended by school. The summer of the rest of my life. Instead of the overhead I just have lamps lit so my room is full of warmth, the darkness pressing against the glass. I'm laying in bed with headphones on, trying to find something to listen to. I turn to an old favorite on a whim. Alela Diane. I liked one of her songs once but not the rest, her voice dipping away from folk, too close to country twang for my liking. I find her most recent album: Cold Moon. Hit play. The songs are otherworldly, slow. They meander, Alela's voice lifting like a white sheet on a windy day, floating, longing to break free.

The ocean is the color that you saw
The ocean is the color it will always be
with or without your hands to paint it

As I sang into the night sky
I knew that you were stopping by
to say goodbye
Goodbye, Goodbye

I listen to the album all the way through. I don't move. I am transfixed. Even for all the talk of the ocean, the album makes me think of the desert - the way sounds carry, the sky so vast you can barely see the edges. As the album progresses I begin to sense the story the lyrics tell, of loss and questioning. Of wondering what happens when we die. By the end, I want to believe in souls.

Call it God
Call it whatever you like
to believe in souls
To believe that death is someplace
where there are no eyes
where there are no faces
no hands no war no death

Is it a colorless night
shrouded in white
do we return here again?


II. I am little, sitting on my parent's bed.  Joni Mitchell's "Little Green" emanates from a tiny first-gen iPod speaker. Her words, twisting like vines around the room. Her details, so tactile you can almost taste them:

Call her Little Green
For the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
like the lights when the northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes and sometimes
there'll be sorrow

I'm filled with childlike joy - the kind that only comes from the simplest things like stacking blocks on top of each other or painting blindly on fresh paper. Joy for the beauty of the music and the melancholy of the words, though in my child's brain it isn't melancholy, just specific: Birthday clothes. Icicles. Northern lights. Sorrow. My mother tells me the song makes her sad. When I ask why, she tells me that Joni wrote it about giving up her child for adoption. I listen to it again, and the lyrics snap into place where before they were only pretty words:

Born with the moon in cancer
choose her a name she'll answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
call her green for the children who've made her

Suddenly, I'm crying. Suddenly the world seems bigger and more unfathomable. Suddenly the simple details take on so much meaning. I know my mom feels bad, but looking back I'm glad she told me what it meant. It cracked the song, and its details, wide open.


III. It is December 2017. I'm in bed again. I can't fall asleep. Too much coffee too late in the day and my heart feels like it's trying to patter it's way out of my chest, but my eyelids are heavy and my limbs feel like they're made of lead, like at any moment I could sink into the mattress. I listen to my "Sleep" playlist. I listen to "Cold Moon." Drift in and out of sleep. Somewhere in an old playlist: Anais Mitchell. I click on an album called "Xoa", hit play. Her voice, elvish, etherial, pierces and lulls at the same time. I'm more awake now, the opposite of where I want to be, but I don't care because I just want to listen to her words. Her songs are stories, tales of sorrow of grace of beauty and light.

Come out the streets are breathing
heaving green to red to green
come with your nicotine and wine
tambourine keeping time
you come and find me in the evening
Way over yonder I'm waiting and wondering
wither your fonder heart lies

Sometimes her voice molds itself into a wail. It tapers and grows, vibrates with something sad and beautiful and little bit jagged like unpolished crystal. I listen to it on repeat. Drift in and out of sleep. When I wake up, her voice croons softly through one earbud, the other slipped away from me in the night.

She's leading you home from the heat of the bar
to lie on the levy and look at the stars
you can hold her hand
you can kiss her face
go slow if you can
cause the world is a very sad place
cause when she leaves she'll leave no trace
and the world will still be there

End Of Year Thoughts

2017. The year I graduated college. The year I started a job at a bookstore. The year of Hurricane Harvey. The year I witnessed the sun slip into blackness; the year I was surrounded by a 360 degree sunset. My first winter in four years without seeing snow. Hopefully the year I finally finish the first draft of a novel. A transition year - half in school, half in the "real world."

I've always been more inclined to look forward than to look back. Reflecting on the past does not come naturally to me. Whenever I try, the days come back to me in a hazy blur and I think, "Was that this year? Was that yesterday? Was that last month?" It's around this time of year when I start making plans in earnest. I ready my planner for January. I draft lists of resolutions. I prepare to re-set my life, take stock, even if it rarely lasts more than a couple of weeks. This year, though, 2017 feels like unfinished business. I'm not ready to be catapulted into the wilds of 2018. I have too much to finish, and for once, it feels like some of those goals I made this time last year are actually within reach.

I don't really know what this post is supposed to be. Probably just another vague post about "something coming," about all that potential that I'm just barely learning how to grasp onto. Sometimes I feel like I'm always on the cusp of productivity, of figuring out what it is I want, of the next big project. I'm never in the middle, I'm always just starting out. Or maybe it just feels that way because in my own idealistic way, everything feels like beginning. Maybe I'm in the middle and I don't even know it.

What I'm really trying to do is remind myself to move slowly, take it all in. Not to spend so much time planning for the future that I miss the present. 

The present is this:

-Fall color in the leaves (finally)

-Christmas careening toward us in all its tinselly glory

-Sitting in warm coffee shops and jotting down bits of other people's conversations

-Wrestling with big writing projects, mapping how much I need to write every day if I want to finish by December 30th, veering wildly between thinking I can do it and thinking it's an impossible, inhuman task

-Writing rambly blog posts just to get myself back into the habit

-Coveting clothes I can't afford; falling in love with Juniper scented candles, even though I've never been the kind of girl who has the urge to burn candles; trying not to fall prey to the consumerism of the season

-Tentatively listening to my Christmas playlist, then deciding I'm not in the mood for Christmas music and listening to something else; wondering when the Christmas bug will bite me this year 

-Working on carrying everything deeply, all at once

-Devolving into sentimentalism

-Signing off now

For those of you still reading, I'm sorry for the word vomit. Feel free to comment your own wishy-washy seasonal feelings below.

The Summer of the Rest of Your Life

I've been trying to write about what it feels like to be newly graduated. Every time I sit down the words come, but by the end of it they don't feel adequate. Or maybe they feel self important. What do I know? Not enough. These days are strange and unwieldy. I try to wrangle them into submission by writing, making plans, setting goals. It feels like summer, and yet not quite the summers I've known my entire life. An old friend and a stranger.

Yesterday my friend Ruth came over and she, my mom, and I made gelatin prints with leaves and paint and fabric. It's a quintessential summer activity for us- making art projects for the fun of it, no pressure, no expectations, just enjoying making a mess. At the end of it we have twenty or so squares of printed fabric and no idea what to do with them all. Mom says maybe we could turn them into a quilt, but I kind of like the fact that they don't have a purpose. I like that not everything needs to be in service to something else.

Later, Ruth and I are talking about how it feels to be done with school (for now). I know that this is the source my uncertainty, this weird pendulum of days. I feel urgency, and I feel it bad. Every decision acts like something that effects all of the strands of time unraveling in front of me. When I was in school, for some reason, wasting time didn't feel as unforgivable. I could spend a couple of hours watching youtube videos and it was okay, if only because it was in a larger container. I could waste time because I had a deadline to pull me back into the work. Now, though, that container is gone. That container is the rest of my life. Now, it's entirely up to me to delegate my time, and I feel more guilty about wasting it because wasting it feels like wasting my life. 

Of course, I know intellectually that my time has always been mine, and it didn't suddenly become mine after I graduated. I've always had the choice of what to do with it, even though I didn't always use it wisely. I know I should use this new-found urgency to my advantage, but it feels like tug-of-war sometimes. I'm scared of losing it, because then I'll slip back into my old ways, with nothing to keep the idleness in check. But if I hold it too close, my whole life stretches in front of me, paralyzing. If I let urgency rule, even my most productive days are never enough.

That's why Ruth and I dubbed this "the summer of the rest of our lives." It feels like any other summer. It feels like I'll be going back to school in September. But this summer will blend effortlessly into fall, with no first day of school to mark the transition. This summer is the beginning of all other summers that will arrive unannounced, without ceremony.

And I know, eventually, these wild, expansive days will filter back into containers: I'll get a job. I'll have deadlines and appointments and obligations to people other than myself. The terrifying responsibility of being sole master of my days will loosen.

I keep coming back to that Mary Oliver quote, the one that insists, "Tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" I know I don't have to figure it all out this second. I know I have time, even when it feels like it's unraveling too fast. So I'll keep asking that question, keep letting it guide me. I'll lean into urgency and away from idleness. I'll try and cherish these container-less days.

Some Thoughts on Instagram

Today I finally updated my Instagram app. Goodbye classic logo; hello new, boring one.

Okay, so I know I'm woefully behind on this one. Most people have already updated Instagram (like six months ago) and gotten used to the new features, but switching over today got me thinking about Instagram as a whole, as well as the impact it's had on my life. Here are my thoughts, loosely organized:

Part 0: Meta Ramblings

It feels kind of ridiculous to even be writing about an app. I still have a tendency to see internet culture as something less real, or less "worthy" than culture that has its origins in the "real-world." But of course that's ridiculous because the two are, more than ever, inextricably linked. I also feel hesitant to spend so much time contemplating and interacting with an app which could theoretically go extinct. Think MySpace. Think Vine. Think about your favorite website ten years ago: does it still exist? So much of that time and creativity, obsolete or completely gone. Still, Instagram feels important, and I don't think it's in danger of dying out any time soon. It's been a major source of creativity and inspiration to me since I first got a smart phone my junior year of high school. So I'm going to put aside my initial reservations and give Instagram the thoughtful consideration it deserves. 

Part I: Background

First of all, let me just say, I love Instagram. It's by far my favorite social media platform. I think the reason I fell in love with it is because it's one of the few social sites that feels truly creative. Not only does it satisfy my itch to see the world through other people's eyes, but posting to Instagram feels like an act of creation. You're not just telling people about your day or sharing a funny meme. You're actively noticing the world around you, capturing it in a way that only you can, and sharing it with other people. Instagram feels like an experience in a way that Twitter and Facebook don't. You open the app in the morning and see twelve different sunrises, breakfasts, and cups of coffee. No two photos are the same, and yet we're all experiencing the same morning, the same sunrise. Instagram brings everyday to the level of an art form.

Part II: Criticisms

That's not to say that Instagram is perfect. The plethora of sunrise, breakfast, and coffee photos is both a blessing and a curse. There are entire Instagram accounts devoted to Instagram cliches. Over the years the platform has become less a place where people post photos from their everyday life and more a glossy silkscreen designed to make their life seem more perfect than it is. The act of adding filters to your photos was already an act of enhancement, but look at enough Instagram accounts and you'd think most people were living lives filled with travel, adventure, and gourmet food. Most of the time I see Instagram as a source of creative inspiration, as a way to experience beauty through other people's eyes. But I'd be lying if I said I never fall into the trap of jealousy, based on the false notion that someone's Instagram feed is an accurate representation of their daily life.

Part III: The New Instagram

This leads me to the update. Part of the reason it took me so long to switch over was that I didn't really care about the "story" feature in the first place. For those that don't know, your story is a way to upload photos and videos that are separate from your normal Instagram feed. They disappear after 24 hours, and they play in succession, so if you want you can see moments from someone's entire day at a glance. The feature comes almost directly from Snapchat, complete with a similar option to write captions over the photos and add cute overlays and graphics. 

I wasn't expecting to like Instagram's story feature. I'm still not sure that I do, but it certainly got me thinking. I found myself fascinated by the difference between what people posted on their stories and what showed up in their normal feed. The same thing that bothers me about Instagram, the tendency for it to feel overly perfect and contrived, was suddenly enhanced by the existence of the story feature. Here, the same person who posted a stunning photo of themselves on a beach at sunset to their regular Instagram, could also post a video to their story about running out of gas near that same beach. The Instagram story is anti-filter and anti-perfection. If your Instagram feed were a movie, your story would be the "behind the scenes" featurette. It draws attention to the artistry required to post a beautiful, filtered photo to your feed. 

Part IV: Authenticity and Artifice

This dichotomy has been bothering me all day. With the new update, Instagram has tried to put two opposing forces in the same place. Instagram stories are all about immediacy. You only see photos and videos for a few seconds at a time. You get the sense that they were created quickly, too. It's life in rapid fire. By comparison, regular Instagram forces you to really look at a photo, take it all in. It is a perfectly curated snapshot, something that was composed and edited rather than simply captured. 

What I like about the stories is that they're personal. You're not just seeing this person through their photographs anymore; you're hearing their voice, seeing how they move in the world and interact with others. But if stories are somehow more "authentic" where does that leave your regular feed?

Does seeing "behind the scenes" make your photos more beautiful or more fake?  Does it matter that everything we put online is curated in some way? 

I don't know the answers to these questions. All I know is that seeing a video of someone I'd only ever known through photos was a profoundly strange experience. I immediately revised my original view of that person based on their voice and their mannerisms. It made it harder for me to idealize them, because now I know for sure that they are just a regular person living a regular life. Maybe Instagram stories does the much needed work of breaking the facade. But maybe it also turns the thoughtfulness behind each photo into a display of its curated-ness.

Part V: Conclusions, If I have Any

Basically, Instagram's story feature is weird, but I still like Instagram as a whole. I wrote this post not to bash Instagram or the people who use it, but to think critically about the way we portray our lives online. I'll probably have more thoughts on this in the future, and I'm curious to hear yours. I thought I'd end with a list of my favorite Instagrammers, the people who inspire me daily to see the world through a creative lens. 

@rachelcokerwrites - One of my favorite people on Instagram. Rachel sees a world full of color. She always seems to turn small outings into mini adventures, and she excels at appreciating the little things. Follow for vintage fashion, sisterly love, and thoughtful musings on art.

@hellopoe - This lady has some serious photography skills! She travels constantly for her job as a freelance photographer, but her photos don't feel postcard-perfect in the way that a lot of travel photography does. She has an incredible eye for color and line, and every time I see one of her photos I want to set out on my own adventure.

@ashleymaryart - One of the many artists I follow on Instagram. I love her unique, geometric style, and the best part about her Instagram story is getting an in depth look at her process and watching her work come to life!

@jedediahjenkins - It's hard not to admire someone with such profound curiosity and unbridled joy. I also wish I was half as good a writer as Jedediah. His (long!) captions make me revaluate my reality every. single. time. His most recent posts regarding politics and how to bridge the gaps between people are a balm for the soul. Come for the photos, stay for the words.

@thiswildidea - Okay, I'll be honest, I mostly follow this guy for his dog. (As I think most people do - she's in almost every photo) She is supremely cute and also probably the most well behaved dog on the planet. One resounding pro of Instagram stories: you get to see her in action!

@laurenmarek - Another fantastic photographer who happens to also be based in my hometown. What a cool thing it is to see the city you grew up in through the eyes of another person. She's made me see Houston in a whole new light. 

Phew! I think that's enough for one post. Let me know if you think this hard about social media, too.

Momentum Creates Momentum

I've always been an aspire-er. A person who aspires more than she does. It's a quality that I've struggled with for pretty much my whole life, and I still have a long way to go. But this year, I've been making minuscule progress. For the past couple of weeks, doing homework hasn't felt like pulling teeth. My done journal is more than just piddly little organizational tasks, but actually things like "Finished art history assignment" and "Wrote 800 words." I still have my share of lazy days (yesterday, for example), but where before it was hard to get back up after I fell off the productivity wagon, now I find it relatively easy to start fresh.

If you know me, you know that I'm kind of a productivity junkie. As a kid I was obsessed with routines and would spend hours imagining what my life would be like if every day was the same. (I know, I was a weird kid. Also I no longer wish every day was the same). Now I just read about famous writers' morning routines (my favorite is Darwin's: even with constant illness and anxiety about how his work would be received, he still found time to write, take long, meandering walks, and reply to every single letter he received). So really, nothing much has changed. But as much as I admired other people's orderly schedules and productive days, I was never really able to recreate that for myself.

One piece of advice I've heard over and over again is that momentum creates momentum, or in other words: the more you do things, the easier doing things becomes. A young Amelia Earhart echoes this beautifully in a letter to her mother: "Despite my unusual activity I am very well organized to do more the more I do. You know what I mean... I am not overdoing it and all that is needed for bouncing health is plenty to eat and happiness. Consider me bursting, please." Let's hope this isn't my characteristic beginning-of-the-semester optimism (see my post from last September if you don't believe me). This feels a little different, more stable, more like something taking root. No doubt there are other posts on this blog that sound like this: full of optimism and brimming with plans for the future. I was hesitant to post this for fear of sounding false or repetitive, or worse, jinxing myself out of my newfound productivity. But, what the heck.

Consider me bursting.

Track Changes

I've met people who can look at their life and trace the trajectory of their personality. They chop up their life into categories and say things like, "Oh, that was my punk phase." While I recognize that we all go through phases, I've always found mine a little harder to pick out. For the most part I tend to like the same things, talk to the same people, and wear the same kinds of clothes. That's not to say I never change, just that it takes me longer to notice the divide between past me and present me. For the most part, I feel utterly, unequivocally, me. 

I look at what I wrote at the beginning of last semester, though, and I feel different. I had so many bright ideas. I wanted to blog more, write more. Now, everything I write here feels a little self indulgent. Who am I really writing to? What do I really have to say?

I don't know the answer to that. And for once, I'm not going to pretend that I do. What I've written here in the past doesn't seem untrue, just not true to my current self. For the first time in a long time, I feel the pull of my past selves -- the ones who were bright-eyed and who thought they could do everything on their own -- and I find myself tugging in the opposite direction.

I don't think I'll ever be the kind of person who sheds personalities like old skin. I'll always be the idealistic one who sets too many goals, who loves beautiful sentences, who wears stripes and tie-dye and sundresses. But there's also room for things to shift, and for them to settle in a slightly different place.

For now, I'm fine with picking them up where they fall.

Things I liked at the beginning of 2017:
-Fluffy blankets
-Huge books with epic stories
-Thinking about geological time
-Medieval illuminated manuscripts
-Cuddling with dogs
-Skype calls with the one I love
-My new tea maker
-The OA (Netflix show)
-Miyazaki films
-Russian literature
-Microsoft Word jokes (see the title of this post)

Until next time.

Apartment Life and Other Ephemera

I've been having trouble figuring out what to post here lately. There are so many things I could write about, but none of them seem quite substantial enough for their own post. Here instead is a smattering of thoughts in list form, because lists are great. (Like I said, the blogger in me isn't doing so hot. Please forgive the dumb generalizations like "Lists are great." Right. Moving on.)

1. School has started, and I'm living in an on-campus apartment with my friends. It's the first time we've all lived in the same space and it feels right, like this was how it was meant to be all along. We drink iced coffee in the mornings and marathon animated kid's shows at night. I've scattered some pictures throughout this post, because I know you're all curious.

2. Projects, projects, and more projects. Luckily school hasn't gotten too hectic yet, so I've been focusing on making things. I'm revising a manuscript of short stories for my Manuscript Workshop class. I'm chipping away at a novel, fifteen minutes a day. I'm thinking of ways to spice up Letters to October. I'm working on my bookbinding skills. I'm trying to bring a version of Letters Live to my school. I love having lots of projects going at once. As Annie Dillard timelessly said, "How we spend out days is, of course, how we spend our lives," and I want my days to be a wild kaleidoscope of my multiple loves.

3. While summer is still my favorite season, I have to admit I'm ready for fall. I'm ready to wear scarves again, drink apple cider, and curl up under a blanket with chilly rain drumming on the windowsill. I even made an autumn-themed playlist.

4. Currently Reading: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Mirror Thief by Martin Seay, Truth and Beauty by Anne Patchett, Uprooted by Naomi Novik

5. Something I wrote in my notebook recently: "Being a senior in college feels a lot like standing on a very long diving board. I'm safe as long as I stay firmly planted on the thin strip of aluminum, but I have to keep moving towards the edge, and once I reach it, it's into the deep end I go. It's the leap that scares me, that moment when you have to squeeze your eyes shut and plug your nose and step into thin air."

6. Writers I'm most excited to see at The Texas Book Festival in November: Amor Towles, Shanon Hale, Allison Amend, Francine Prose, Carl Hiaasen, Nick Offerman, and Jane Alexander

7. Little nuisances: Dirty dishes that seem to repopulate the sink every five minutes, the price of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, accidentally drinking too much coffee late in the day

8. Little joys: Sharing my favorite childhood films with my friends who are watching them for the first time, pancakes for dinner, meetings with enthusiastic professors, getting letters from friends and family

9. I miss London. Florence will always have a special place in my heart, but London captured my imagination. It's an amazingly vibrant city- constantly creating, moving, and altering your perception of it, even as you learn your way around. It's at once iconic and utterly unexpected and little old Cedar Rapids just completely pales in comparison. Some things quell my London cravings, so I thought I'd share them here: London in Fiction, Daughterland, Marion Honey's Blog, A Sketching Trip to the National Portrait Gallery

10. I'm going to leave you with this video chronicling two friends' trip to Norway. I don't know what it is about this little travelogue, but there's just something so calming and magical about it. It makes me think of Copenhagen, where they put candles on the tables in coffee shops, too. *sigh* Youtube can be really pretty sometimes.

Until next time.

Coming Home

I've been back in the US for a month now. That's enough time to recover from jet lag, fall back into old routines, and forget about my time abroad (not!). Being home has been a bit of a roller coaster. I attended University of Houston's Boldface writing conference, went on a family trip to Joshua Tree National Park, and I've spent a lot of time figuring how to not waste what is conceivably my last summer to fall between two semesters.

This summer, my friends are scattered across the country. Most of them are busy with summer jobs or internships. Me? I'm taking this time to work on the projects that have been bumping around in my head for months. I'm writing. I'm brainstorming. I'm creating something out of nothing. It's a little chaotic and a little slow, but I'm discovering that I get bored working on just one project at a time. I like the challenge and variety of having several plates in the air. It's been working out, too, as long as I don't spend too much time deciding what to work on first ;) (Ah, indecision, the devilish cousin of procrastination).

Even with my new-found determination, and certainly enough projects to keep my hands busy and my mind in the present, I still find myself longing for the old-world charm of Florence and the vibrancy of London. The answer, I think, is appreciating the little things that make home, home. Things like iced coffee (the staple of every good summer). The way the light falls at golden hour. The warmth of my living room. My huge, beautiful, mess of a desk. So yeah, sometimes I wake up feeling homesick for my dream-scicle colored bedroom in Florence, and my too-warm flat in London, but these are the side affects of leaving my heart in too many places at once.

Coming home hasn't been easy, but a month later things are finally starting to fall into place. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to have the incredible gift of time, support, and resources to do the things I love. I'm happy to have a head in two worlds, a heart in two or three or five places. Stay tuned for updates on what I'm working on, and a couple posts on my time in London!

Taken on my last day in beautiful London, at our home tube stop

Creation Over Consumption

Yesterday I had one of those afternoons where I click on something and then I blink and two hours have passed. Waking up from one of these internet trances is always a bit disconcerting. I usually feel pretty good about my internet use, mainly because I spend most of my time reading enriching articles or watching videos where people think critically about books, media, and art. But in consuming other people's thoughts for two hours on autopilot, without noticing my own thoughts or even my own body, I realized just how much more time I spend consuming rather than creating online.

I would bet that this is a pretty common phenomenon. It's a lot easier to consume other people's creations than to create your own. I often find myself inspired after seeing the things other people create, but I've begun to realize how rarely that inspiration is acted on, and even more rarely is it actually turned into a completed project.

Maybe this shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but after a year of watching inspiring youtube videos, consuming thousands of aesthetically pleasing Instagram photos, and reading countless blog posts (half of which were about "how to be productive"), I'm getting fed up with this habit of always consuming and never creating.

That's not to say that I believe all consumption is bad. Creativity doesn't happen in a vacuum, as they say. But creativity also doesn't happen if you spend your time wishing it away. I've let myself become used to the ache of seeing something that inspires me and then letting that inspiration go to waste because "I'm scared" or "I don't have time." I'm tired of wrapping myself in a warm blanket of excuses.

That's why 2016 is going to be a year of creation over consumption. I'm going to follow my creative urges wherever they may lead. I'm going to fight the moon-like pull of all the other creative people doing creative things and instead start focusing on adding my own voice to the crowd.

That being said, I don't really have a concrete plan for getting past my consumption addiction (yet). It's easy to daydream about creating - that's a big part of what all of this consumption has facilitated: a lot of daydreaming. I'm not short on ideas. In fact I'm practically drowning in them. It's just a matter of picking one. Finding the nearest tool. And starting.

***
London & Florence Countdown:
Days until departure: 6
Excitement to Anxiety Ratio: 75:25

The First Snowfall

Last night we had the first snowfall of the year here in Iowa. According to my Minnesota friends, getting more than a dusting of snow during the first snowfall is pretty rare. But there you have it. Last night is snowed for several hours, and this morning I woke up to one of my favorite sights, a sparkling, pristine blanket of white against a bright blue sky.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not a winter person. My favorite season is unabashedly summer. This year, though, the coming of snow has filled me with unexpected joy. Today, on the cold, slippery walk to my favorite coffee shop, I marveled at the way the sinking sun (it was only 3:30, and it already had that golden tint of late evening) makes the white snow glow with a warm brilliance. But there was one moment that absolutely took my breath away.

The snow around the base of a tree was completely covered in bright yellow leaves. It was as if the tree had been startled by the coming of winter, tossed its branches up in defeat, and dropped all of its leaves at once. There was a sense of abandon, a shock of color, a gift to the landscape. I was struck by both the randomness and the beauty of it all.

It only took a moment to appreciate it. I stopped. I marveled. I took a few pictures. And then I continued my trudge to the coffee shop. (It was cold). But I have a feeling that the image will stay with my for a long time. Not just because I have pictures of it. That helps, of course, but those photos will slip into the backlog of my photo feed just as easily as the pictures I took of last year's snowfall. There's something metaphorical about it, all of that color against the blank snow, and I haven't quite figured out what it is yet. You could say that I'm just looking for meaning where there is none, but you could say that about anything. I believe that there are pockets of wonder everywhere, and they are different for different people. I might find reverence in a startled tree; someone else might find it on a bustling city street.

I suppose I could impose some sort of meaning onto it. Maybe it struck me because it makes me think of the change I so desperately crave. Maybe it signifies rebirth or death, redemption even. Maybe we are too quick to assign meaning to things. Our reaction to beauty, nature, art, tragedy, doesn't need any modifiers. We don't have to tease out the reason behind feeling something. We just have to feel it.

I wrote this with the intention of understanding my reaction to this moment- why I find it funny and sad all at the same time. Why, when I think about it, I get that ache in my chest that happens whenever I see something beautiful. But then again, beauty doesn't need an explanation, and feelings don't need modifiers. The best we can do is cling to those moments, pull them out again when we need to be reminded that there are still some things we can't explain, and to find some strange comfort in the chaos.

Currently...

Photo by Indigo

Making: A lot!
-A slow, atmospheric music video to the song Artifact 3 by Ryan Teague
-A 6' by 9' canvas mural that's going to brighten up our patio
-A joint Tumblr with my friend, where we share our daily progress on our respective creative habits. Me with my favorite sentence from the day's writing, Indigo with the newest page from her sketchbook. (Our most recent post can be seen in the sidebar!)
-My first couple articles for the Houston Chronicle, where I'm lucky enough to be volunteering this summer
-Savory popcorn via Alisa Burke

Planning: 
-A bunch of future blog posts, including:
    -More recap posts about my trip to Paris
    -An update on my creative bucket list
    -Maybe some book reviews...
-A dessert cookbook based around my summer creative writing club, Words for Dessert

Pondering: What the words "growth" and "change" mean to me. It feels like I have a million plates in the air right now, but it also feels like this summer and all the creative stuff I'm doing might be a transformative experience.

Reading: The Girl Who Slept with God by Val Brelinski

Watching: I watch movies more than I watch TV shows, so here's some of the best films I've seen  recently:

Love and Mercy
This is the story of Brian Wilson, lead singer and main innovator behind The Beach Boys. Sometimes  films just come out of nowhere and completely blow you away. This was one of them. It is a beautiful, suspenseful, and heartbreaking look not only at Brian Wilson's life but his creative process as well. Also the sound design/soundtrack is absolutely superb.

Testament of Youth
Based on the memoir of Vera Brittan, this is the story of an extraordinary woman and her efforts to make sense of the relentless brutality of WWI. It's a tremendously sad story, but there are moments of beauty throughout. One of my favorite things about it was how close all of the cinematography felt. There were very few wide shots, and when they were used it was for a specific and powerful effect.

Listening: to Darlingside's new single, on repeat. It's that good. (Also, their new album comes out in September!)

Enjoying:
-Iced coffee with breakfast
-Stepping into the air conditioning after being out in the heat and humidity
-Long afternoon photo shoots with my best friend
-Driving at night with the windows rolled down, music blasting
-Sunrises and sunsets
-New dresses

Vignettes from the Recent Past, Pictures from Today

I. 

More often than not, Cedar Rapids feels like one big strip mall. Most of the green spaces are hemmed in by concrete. The city smells different depending on what flavor of cereal the Quaker Oats factory is churning out, and on sunny Saturdays the streets fill with motorcycles. Sometimes, though, I find things I never expect. Across the river from downtown there is an amphitheater that plays the sounds of Canada Geese over loud speakers every fifteen minutes. Nearby is a sculpture made out of recycled glass that creates a fun-house mirror effect when you stand underneath it. Every time I feel like everything has become homogenous, I find a random stretch of road made out bricks or a charming, vine covered building. While I occasionally wish I'd gone to school in place closer to nature (usually while scrolling through Instagram), Cedar Rapids is teaching me that everything can be interesting, if you let it. 

II.

After a long winter, sunny days are a shock to the system. Yesterday, our first official day of summer, my friends and I laid in the grass and took selfies. Somehow we had gone the whole year without getting a single picture of the four of us together. The moment was both sublime and melancholy: one of my friends is transferring to another school, and another is going to be abroad next semester. As I watch the graduation tents go up on the quad, I can't help feeling that quintessential stirring that accompanies every step into the unknown. In just a few days time I'll be on a plane headed for Paris. I'm both excited and stressed, and meanwhile summer has me intoxicated with heady feelings of freedom. Every day for the past few days, the clouds roll in around 4pm. The wind picks up. The temperature drops. The rain falls at an angle, with a force that stings bare skin. Everything is motion. Summer is here, and the world is all a-flutter. 

III.

Every day I see pictures of places I want to live someday. The impossibly green pastures of Ireland. The deep, dark conifers of the Northwest. Blue sky stretching above West Texas like a drum. It makes me want to speed up time, run faster, do more. What's lost in the gap between here and there? Every day I face the delusion that I should be somewhere else, when really this is the only place I can be, and the only place I am. I am reminded of this every time I see a familiar face, or double over laughing at something a friend has said. I am reminded on late night pancake runs and Sunday morning conversations with my roommates. Every time the wanderlust catches hold, it's the people that keep me grounded. This is my little place in this big, messy world. I'm not going to waste my time wishing it was somewhere else.

This Is Who I Am Now

"Rules for Self Discovery:

1. What we want most

2. What we think about most

3. How we use our money

4. What we do with our leisure time

5. The company we enjoy

6. Who and what we admire

7. What we laugh at"

-A.W. Tozier

1. Unlimited writing time; that breathless, teary eyed laughter; freedom from unnecessary time-sucks;  creative collaboration; being surrounded by enthusiastic people; travel opportunities; room to explore varied interests

2. Stories; words; dogs; photography; the last podcast episode I listened to; the future; memories of the people I love; Shakespeare; learning to play the mandolin; my to-do list; the last book I read; the universe; faraway places

3. Coffee; chocolate; books; cross-country train tickets; concerts; school supplies; the occasional twirly dress

4. Read; write; watch youtube videos; participate in long conversations; take walks; have impromptu dance parties; go to coffee shops; daydream; sketch; listen to music and podcasts

5. Friends; family; dogs; enthusiastic people; artists; book lovers; travelers; people with a high tolerance for embarrassment; storytellers; perceptive people; knowledgable people; nature; books; silence

6. Anyone who is unapologetic about what they love; perseverance; Shannon Hale; John and Hank Green; people who are experts at something; Emily Graslie; optimism; generosity; anyone who is trying to make a difference for other people; Jad Abumrad; Roman Mars; my best friend; people who are good at time management

7. Goofy faces; puns; my dog; word play; inside jokes; catch phrases; old memories; strangers who do/say weird things

Fear, Plans, and Journaling

I am a maker of plans. A list maker, a dreamer, a person who functions best when she has something to look forward to. But what happens when that something (that project, that trip, that social event) evokes a mixture of fear as well as excitement? In a fight between the two, fear usually wins. No, I usually let fear win. And the stupid thing is, that of the two emotions, fear is always the smallest, physically. Fear is the tiny ball in the pit of my stomach, while excitement is the thing that makes me want to get up and actually do something. Excitement is in my blood and fear is a parasite.

When I look back through my old journals, which I've been keeping on and off since the 6th grade, I see a major shift take place between middle and high school. In middle school I wrote mostly about my life. I wrote about things that happened to me, or interesting conversations, or something my teacher said, but in high school a lot of that reflection got replaced by plan-making. I stopped writing about what my life was actzually like and started writing about what I wanted my life to be like. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing, but when I look back at those entries I realize that almost all of them say the same things: Write more. Procrastinate less. Get out of your comfort zone.

Figuring out what caused this shift inevitably lead me to wondering why I keep a journal in the first place. When I was younger, I wanted my older self to be able to look back at my entries and learn something about what it was like to be me at that age. As I got older, my priorities changed. Keeping a journal became less about recording my life and more about the the act of writing. Writing was how I figured stuff out. Writing made me feel empowered, and when I wrote out exactly who I wanted to be, and how I was supposedly going to get there, I felt more in control. The problem was, of course, that I never remembered.

One of the innate things about keeping a journal is that you write something down, get something off your chest, and then you forget about it. It's like putting your emotions or experiences into a jar that you only take down from the shelf once a year. So no matter how many times I wrote out my plans, I was putting them in a place that wasn't going to help me very much.

Realizing this has pushed me forward in a lot of ways. For one, I understand now that I don't want to look back at my journals every few years and read about everything I wanted to do, but never did. That, to me, is a far stronger motivator than a million lists and action plans and ideal life scenarios. That fear, the fear of always planning but never doing, is actually a good thing. It keeps me motivated and on track. And more importantly, I can choose it over the other kind. At the very least I'll end up with the kind of journals my older self will actually enjoy reading.

On Being Lost

I've been thinking recently about the sensation of being lost. To me, it conjures up two very different emotions. The first is the kind of stomach drop feeling you get when your realize that you have no idea where your are. It's that feeling of being completely alone, and the desperation that accompanies the search for a familiar face, a landmark, something to mark your progress. The second association has more to do with voluntarily letting go, seeking the unknown and unfamiliar,  actually choosing to get lost.

More and more I find myself craving the unfamiliar. You could call it wanderlust, I suppose, but it feels deeper than that. As much as new surroundings can shock me out of my comfort zone, I crave change at the molecular level. For me, change has always been slow and almost undetectable. If you spoke to my former self, I think you'd find them remarkably similar to the person I am now. So many people find their past selves unrecognizable, and yet when I look back I feel like fundamentally the same person I was in the 5th grade: still idealistic, still shy in new situations, still inspired by beautiful words on a page. I suppose I should feel lucky. I've always felt grounded, held in place by the support system of my family and friends and my own sense of who I am and where I want to go. Is it wrong to wish for something as messy and difficult as losing yourself only to find it again, transformed?

I stumbled across a quote the other day that has haunted me ever since. It is a question posed by the Greek philosopher Meno, and it reads:

How will you go about finding that thing which is totally unknown to you?

It's a paradox wrapped in a question wrapped in a dare. How do you look for something you don't even have a name for? Looked at in a different way, it reads as a challenge to take that vital first step into the unknown.

This is something that's been going on inside me for a while, this twisting, this craving for uncertainty and transformation, and I think its finally reached its breaking point. How will I go about finding that thing which is unknown to me? I'll willingly choose to get lost. I'll smother my fear and be accepting of new experiences. I'll seek change in the same way I seek knowledge: by exploring. It won't be easy, and I don't want it to be. What I do want is to be surprised by the person I become.

***

End Note: I feel I should credit my sources of inspiration for this post, not just because they helped shape my point of view, but because they are wonderful in their own right:

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

This interview with Jad Abumrad, creator of Radiolab

This blog post by Rachel Coker, who never fails to be an inspiration

Quote of the Day: Departure

Today was my last day of classes as a college freshman. No matter how many times I say that to myself it still doesn't seem real. So much of my week has been taken up by the weight of everything I have to do before I leave (turn in my last few assignments, study for finals, do laundry, pack), that I haven't had time to think about what it means. Leaving for the summer. Moving out of my dorm room. And then I discovered this quote:

"Packing up. The nagging worry of departure. Lost keys, unwritten labels, tissue paper lying on the floor. I hate it all. Even now, when I have done so much of it, when I live, as the saying goes, in my boxes. Even today, when shutting drawers and flinging wide a hotel wardrobe or the impersonal shelves of a furnished villa is a methodical matter of routine, I am aware of sadness, of a sense of loss. Here, I say, we have lived. We have been happy. This has been ours, however brief the time. Two nights only have been spent beneath a roof, yet we leave something of ourselves behind. Nothing material, not a hair pin on a dressing table, not an empty bottle of aspirin tablets, not a handkerchief beneath a pillow, but something indefinable, a moment of our lives, a thought, a mood. This house sheltered us. We spoke, we loved within these walls. That was yesterday. Today we pass on, we see it no more, and we are different, changed in some infinitesimal way. We can never be quite the same again." - Dauphne du Maurier, Rebecca

To me, this quote captures everything I've been feeling and then some. You might think it silly to mourn leaving a place that I know I'll be returning to in three months, but live for two semesters in the confines of a dorm room, and it becomes a home. Of course that's not to say I'm not excited about my living arrangements for next year, but I've grown accustomed to the slamming of the front door to my residence hall (my room is the first door when you enter), and the view outside my window, and the random bits of paraphernalia I have pinned to my cork board. So there is a sadness in the fact that a few days from now, among the chaos that is finals week, I will also be slowly disassembling my room: getting rid of papers, cleaning out drawers, rolling up the rug that I so clearly remember picking out at Ikea last August.
There is something mutable, too, about a dorm room. There will always be the knowledge that it has been inhabited by so many college students before you, and so many more to come. Somewhere out there there are people, probably even a few on this campus, who have their own memories of my dorm room. I think that's why I love the idea of a place's ability to capture "a moment of our lives, a thought, a mood." When I leave this room, I will be leaving behind pieces of freshman year. A year of firsts, and friend-making, and movie-watching. And next year, this room will be a clean slate, its walls bare for someone else to pin their memories to.

A Perfect Summer

I’ve always idealized summer. It exists in my mind as a pocket of time untouched by the laws of every-day life: there are no obligations, and endless possibilities. Instead of being paralyzed by boredom, in my summer, you embrace freedom, harness it. You perfect the act of doing nothing. And of course, the absence of school means that your creativity thrives, and somehow you get more done than you thought possible. I’m aware that this is a paradox, but it is an image I cling to, and it’s been grounded so deeply into my childhood that I can’t seem to separate myself from it. And honestly, I don’t want to. Because when I think about summer, I don’t just think about my perfect summer. There is magic in real summers, too. I’ve seen it first hand. I’ve seen it in the in the stretching of the days, the luxuriously long sunsets, where that impossible green foliage that blankets every tree is momentarily dipped in gold. Later it subsides to a deep blue, and the air is a color like something out of a Monet painting.  I find it in the tiny sandstorm created by the cream as I pour it into a tall glass of iced coffee. It is the morning walks I take with mother and my dog, down a curbless street, filled with birdsong. Occasionally, there are swimming pools. Sometimes, there are long drives in cars under an endless sky. There is rain, too. The kind of summer thunderstorm I haven’t experienced in years. It is a wild rain, punctuated by rumbles that shake the windows of our house, and my mother stands on the front porch, transfixed. 

This is the summer I grew up with. Over the years, it’s changed slightly. It’s been invaded by summer reading books for school, not all of which were bad, and summer assignments which always were. When I learned to drive there was always a nagging sense that I had to go somewhere. Why stay at home when you have a whole city to explore? Still, I often guiltily chose to sit in the backyard and read a book instead. Maybe I idealize summer too much, but when I hear people say that summer is “boring,” I feel indignant. You say the first few weeks weeks are fun. There’s the novelty of it, I guess. But after that, as June yawns into July it’s just another summer, and you don’t know what to do with yourself. I have no patience for this attitude. If you are scared of boredom, your summer will be over before it began. It’s how you use boredom, how you acknowledge it but don’t let it defeat you. Summers are a gift. They are something to be cherished, held in your hands like the blueberries you picked by the bucket-full. Summers are a time capsule to a time when you didn’t need the internet to distract you, when the outdoors was a place you still frequented. And yes, I know it’s hot. I live in a place where humidity makes you feel like you are swimming rather than walking, and mosquitoes gather in prehistoric swarms. In the afternoon the heat presses against windows, and the world is a bug trapped in amber.  

If there is a message here, it is this: Find your perfect summer. Take time to marvel at a rainbow in the arc of a sprinkler, and spend an afternoon in shade that is just cool enough to be bearable. Jump into lakes. Swing from tire swings. If anything, summer reminds us that one moment can feel like an eternity. Inhabit that eternity. Make a home there, and the summer is yours.