For a while--meaning, from October through to the present--I was able to content myself with cooking and baking projects, reading, theatre, working and daydreaming, but my body is screaming for some sustained sunshine. We've had random beautiful days, and I've ridden my bike gleefully, even to work, and eaten my lunch, back pressed against the warm concrete walls of the warehouse. I've trudged to the gym and run back out as soon as my workout was over, to drink a glass of wine on the back stoop and gaze lovingly (if fretfully) at my potted vegetables and herbs. I've eaten a small mountain of baby beets and tender lettuce and fresh sugar snaps, and even a couple of tiny, sun-warmed strawberries from my little plants. Summer is here, fitfully.
But on the 4th of July, it is cool enough to keep the back door closed and wear a sweater, and I don't feel like baking bread. The small pile of herbs sitting on my cutting board, snipped this morning from my parents' garden, induces more angst than creativity. And this month's literary project, Roberto Bolano's 2666, does not entice, perhaps because reading about depressed literary critics isn't uplifting. It raises spectres of my own abandoned graduate studies, making me glad and sad, both, to have left the ridiculous and insular world of academics.
I keep trying to imagine myself on the Irish coast, where it is often cold in the summer time, or at the very least, already on our September honeymoon to Kauai. I'm reading side novels about wars and magic--anything to distract me from the moon-colored sky and my uncharacteristic boredom. I even talked the management team into running a warehouse-themed haiku contest at work, and am now at a loss because all I can think of to contribute is
Books books books books books
books books books books books books books
Books books books books books.
When we were little, my sister and I used to sing this kids' song "Mr. Golden Sun," that went as follows:
Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun,
Please shine down on meee.
You hear that, Mr. Sun? Portland invites you to visit.
He's on his way, I promise!
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