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This was an eventful week in every way, and I displayed a range of emotions throughout each day, it seemed: joy and thankfulness for getting to experience an August without oppressively smoky skies, anguish over the latest news (take your pick), nerves and irritability over the start of the school year and the uncertainty of everything, sentimentality over what September usually brings, sadness about the end of summer, loneliness and cabin fever from general pandemic-ness, and restlessness in my daily routine.
The way I just described it makes it sound generally sad, but I assure you, it was generally a good week. I had good reasons to keep moving, to walk somewhere each day, to break up the regular environment, to see different scenes. I've reminded myself countless times during this pandemic that emotions need motion - it's important to acknowledge discomfort and the source of it as much as to reflect on the tailwinds that allow me to function and thrive. And physical motion is a mental boost, too.
We rode the Spokefest route on Sunday. The annual bike ride was canceled this year and would normally be held in September. It's a beautiful one with some of my favorite views of the Spokane River. Last year, we rode with friends in the pouring rain and felt triumphant by the end, but it certainly is a better ride when the sun is out.
The work-week was busy as we prepared final communications for incoming students arriving on campus this weekend. I was on campus for a few hours and it was so good to just be there and walk across The Loop where flower baskets are overflowing and all the colors are vibrant. I try to think of what it must be like for someone experiencing the campus for the first time. Breathtaking, mostly.
And on Friday and Saturday, the first students arrived, and talk about breathtaking - I'm holding my breath. We all want and need this semester to go well. What a world.
In other news, it's Tour de France time and it's like a little piece of July is back in our house. Another strange feeling. And we got the heaviest watermelon I've ever experienced from our CSA box.
Recipes
I made this recipe from Bon Appetit for coconut-ginger chickpea dal (without all the toppings) and used the incomparable Rancho Gordo chickpeas. Quite yummy.
On Saturday morning I made blueberry oatmeal pancakes. Those were good, too.
Saturday night was a feast of baked cod with Romesco sauce, hazelnuts, lemon and parsley, produced by Joel (another one from BA). We ate it outside in the near-dark otherwise I would have gotten a photo. It was beautiful, a rainbow of flavors. We'd been craving corn on the cob, and earlier that day I ventured to a sweet little produce market in Hillyard for the good stuff and grilled it as a side.
Making
The sleeves of my raglan sweater are finished and now I've begun the body.
Listening
Now that I'm walking more regularly, I've been listening to podcasts again, and this episode of The Daily was a true highlight, about a theater group in the Birkshires performing a COVID-era production of Godspell.
For music, it was good to get to know the music of Gil Scott-Heron, who is perhaps best known for "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." I listened to the album "Pieces of a Man," and the title track was haunting and moving.
Watching
I'm working through that Indian Matchmaking show on Netflix...a good one for knitting. And we watched I'm Thinking of Ending Things, the new Charlie Kaufman movie, on Netflix. It's a mind-bending plot, the kind where you are inventing theories the entire time as you try to figure out what is happening. I enjoyed it.
Reading
Florence Adler Swims Forever has been the perfect thing to read at the end of the summer. I hope to finish it this week and provide a better report.
We were recently reflecting on this summer, and for me, it was akin to the summers of my youth, in terms of being home a lot and spending hours in the backyard. While it went fast, it definitely felt slower. I truly believe that there will be a time when I think of this summer with fondness, or try to recapture some aspect of it again. I am glad we've reached September, a month that feels like the real new year and the start of a new chapter. But it's been a pretty okay summer, all things considered.
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