We have had an incredible summer this year in the Northwest. Some (many) will say it became too hot (103 is too hot for most) Though I actually enjoyed it and today's scheduled high of 75 seems a little chilly for me--I currently have my space heater on.) But with this good (great!) weather comes activity. All the activity us indoor-Northwesterners didn't get during the winter months happens now. I cannot tell you how many nights I have slept in a tent or how many days I have spent in a kayak or bouncing over bumpy terrain mountain biking.
Because of the weather, this has been one of my most active summers ever, which I love. I love being outdoors and in nature, it keeps me sane. It takes away anxiety, I fill up on Vitamin D, I see the world again, reconnect in ways I do not in the winter months--ways that involve putting my hands in the earth, actively participating in a world I hide from much of the year when I stay inside looking through the screen I type on.
It's very hard for me to think about (or even read) poetry in the summer. I am very much the student in life when the cool breeze of fall approaches and blackberries ripen and sunflowers bloom, I find myself aching to write.
Today I woke up and a fog had covered my small town. The ferry was crazily blowing its horn (from 5 am on until 8 am - note to reader: do not romanticize the ferry, it is really only a loud deep alarm clock going off outside your house). When I went downstairs I could feel autumn in the air. I love this feeling. We're slowly moving into fall and as September rolls around the corner, I will be so ready to write. Yes, I'm already starting to feel that ache of wanting to.
But if you look at the poems (or anything) I write in the summer and compare them to what I write from September to June, they aren't as good.
I've been trying to think why and I think much is because I'm out of practice during the summer. I don't know how to begin a poem, an essay, a letter. It all feels very foreign to me. I basically just check out.
This is the first year I didn't take a vacation from my blog. I haven't been here as much, but I wanted to have this place to go to write, to have a reason to write.
As fall returns, I will write more and poetry will return as well. But for now, I'm the observer who is filling herself up with the world around her. When September comes, I know these experiences will find their way onto the page. Right now though, being out in the world has felt really good.
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