There’s a change coming. I’ve been feeling it for weeks — something momentous in the offing. Good change, or heavy change, or only change? Just the shifting of seasons? Something known and unknown — rushing in and out — a breath of autumn blowing away the last hot days of summer? Or something that seems more significant? Something unwieldy to cope with or something ripped from my hands? Or —
I’ve been projecting my anxieties onto the world again. Anxious about the everyday changes I can’t control, I spin up clouds of upheaval that loom ominous in the distance, when I should be still.
That’s the point of all this, slowing down and paying attention. In a world of constant change, can I find the quiet beauty in it? Not by fighting to stay in this moment forever or rushing always into the next one — alternately, grasping and holding on tightly — but by tuning in to the ways that nature adapts and responds. Preparing for some changes and pushing back on others, as forests reclaim abandoned buildings.
There’s a change coming. Inevitable and predictable, the themes repeating over years. Inevitable and unpredictable, the shape and timing of some things hidden from view. Can I be at peace with it? Letting the world turn, out of my control. Not passive, but present.
Can I hold this moment, this season, this life in my hands and release it, when its time is ended, knowing that it will all come full circle again.
To Cambridge, Mass.
More than a year ago, when I was reading David McCullough’s 1776, I took a picture of a page with a sketch of a historic home, captioned “Washington’s headquarters through the Siege of Boston was a Cambridge mansion that still stands, now known as the Longfellow House.” Out of curiosity, I looked the house up on Google maps. Today, it’s a National Historic Site managed by the National Parks Service, and I’ll be touring its storied rooms within the month.
Finding out that I could tour one of Washington’s headquarters was the tiny glimmer that generated a nine-day, four-state road trip through the Northeast. From Massachusetts to Upstate New York, through New Jersey, into Pennsylvania, and then back to New York. Not only visiting three of Washington’s Revolutionary War headquarters but countless other battlefields and monuments. Planning this trip has been a revelation of knowing I want to do something and knowing I can do it, and doing it.
One of the sites I’ll revisit on this trip is Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the location of a favorite childhood memory. I remember, even then, the quiet awe I felt being in the room where they signed the Declaration of Independence. Getting to be that close to history. That’s what I want this whole trip to feel like. So, the milestones of our trip are opportunities to see what life was like in the 18th century and to walk where history happened — the houses where they wrote letters, the historically-accurate kitchen gardens, the living history demonstrations, the trails where armies marched. Places preserved, disregarding centuries, bringing history close enough to touch, after all this time.
Watch this space for updates.
Beauty, as in Life
This weekend, I read Do Design, a book of tiny essays on “Why beauty is key to everything.” Its author, Alan Moore, writes about an approach to life and work that centers beauty as a primary consideration. “Beauty,” as in community and connection and restoration and craftsmanship and truth and innovation. It's about seeing beauty — and, more importantly, the opportunity for beauty — in everything and working purposefully to create things that are meaningful and uplifting.
He writes thoughtfully on the mindset needed to create beauty — still and curious and open. And he outlines processes that support our creative efforts in stories of businesses and people that have created beautiful things. I appreciated his acknowledgment of the time and perseverance it can take to create something beautiful — not convenient, but worthwhile — and his call to aspire for more than the status quo.
This book echoed things I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this summer — staying open to serendipity, writing something that reflects the sensory nature of the world. But the reflections that resonated with me most were about the value of creating beautiful things. In one, Moore writes, “The act of creating something of beauty is a way of bringing good into the world. Infused with optimism, it says simply: Life is worthwhile.”
The Last Days of Summer
On the coast of Southern California, it always seems hottest in September. Our summers pass shrouded in marine layer and end in a wave of heavy air that often won’t recede until October. This month, I’ll balance gratitude for the warmth of still-long days and hope for the languid heat to fade.
I visited a local garden center recently, for the first time, on a particularly hot day, and lamented the temperature with the gardeners, melting among the rows of houseplants and herbs and flowers — new mint and terracotta in hand. At the farmers market on the same hot day, I wandered into the shade of a canopy, invited to try the most delicious berries I’ve ever bought immediately, without hesitation, at a farmers market. I got my sunflowers too. That’s why I was there — melting on a Friday afternoon, between the basketball courts and the library — because I read that having fresh cut flowers at home benefits your mental health.
A few days from now, our friends will host the last group celebration of the season, another pool party potluck on summer’s last weekend. On the lookout for any opportunity to bake, even simple things, I’ll bring these blackberry turnovers. And I’ll swim, for the last time this season, but — since this is Southern California — likely not for the last time this year. And we’ll sit in the yard until it’s dark enough to light a fire and talk until we’re all tired.
In these last days of summer, twilight falls earlier on my neighborhood walks, and the sky turns shades of purple in the cool of the evening. Cool enough, with the breeze, for a jacket, even when the days were hot. Quiet except for the owls who live along the mile I walk — I look up but can’t see them, hidden in the shadows of other tree branches. I walk, and the first quarter moon seems to brighten, as the dusk deepens. The earth glows and grows even more still. And I breathe it in and out. And release this moment. And changes come around in their time.
