Just now, I was putting together my husband’s passport renewal application so I pulled out my stapler. It was jammed, so I proceeded to fix it, remembering how, when I was a waitress back in the 90s, this was one of my very best skills. (If it was a very busy night, and we were in the weeds, I felt like a superhero.) The older I get, the more nostalgic I find myself becoming about the strangest things. Then, as I was using it, I stapled my actual finger and began bleeding. Which was not something that used to happen. Although maybe my application looks very dramatic now. *sigh*
Speaking of memories, this week was Back to School night. You know the drill: get your kid’s schedule, walk through it, meet the teachers and see the classrooms. Talk about nostalgia. My favorite part, though, was near the very end, when I got to go to the library. I walked in and it all just hit me: shelves. Books! READ posters on the walls. Beanbags and comfy spaces to sit! I immediately felt my shoulders unhinge from my ears, where they seem to be staying all the time lately. All I wanted to do was plop down on the rug, grab a book and lose myself in it. (I didn’t, because I was there to hear the dance teacher discuss the semester.) But what is it about a school library that is SO primal to me? If nothing else, it explains the career I chose.
This week we have gotten COMPLETELY obsessed with the adaptation of Elin Hildenbrand’s The Perfect Couple on Netflix. It is like the streaming gods realized that a twisty, soapy murder mystery with great clothes and a gorgeous setting is just what I needed at this moment. (How did I spend part of so many summers on Cape Cod and never make it to Nantucket? A mystery of its own.) It had made me want to go, of course. Also to invest in some cable sweaters and flowing slacks, although I know better than to think I would look anything like Nicole Kidman if I had them. We are trying to pace ourselves through the remaining episodes but I know even if we went at a crawl they’d be over too fast. Always the downside of finding something so fun to binge: eventually, everything ends. Except maybe those crime procedural shows. They will outlast us all.
I’m writing this as I sit on my breezeway, and every once in a while, still, I can hear a hummingbird whizz by and drink from my feeder. But there are fewer of them, for sure, one of my least favorite things about fall coming. The hummingbirds, to me, are like the most exotic of summer residents. They are my Nicole Kidman. Arriving in late spring, I celebrate and cater to them, slaving away making sugar water and ensuring that my feeders are always clean and hospitable. (Although there have been times this summer when I seriously thought I was feeding every single one on the Eastern Seaboard, I was having to refill so much.) I know I wouldn’t be so enamored if they were here year round. It is always the things you have to lose for a bit that you value the most. Maybe exactly for that reason. Soon, I will have to find my daily awe of nature somewhere else. Maybe squirrels? (Also, I promise this will be my last mention of hummingbirds for a LONG time. I know this Substack has been heavy on them! So to speak.)
It’s been a LONG week, and I’m still not sleeping great, so I have declared this a Friday the 13th a Rest Day. Like they call it on the Tour de France, when they take a break between races to recharge. I am no elite cyclist, but y’all, I feel like I have been climbing a lot of mountains of my own lately, with mixed results. Sometimes I make the peak: others, I fall off the side, roll all the way down and then have to pick up my bike, rattling and bent, and start over. But not today. Today I am in sweats, and I’m going to sit on the couch with my dogs (above) and watch a movie, eat snacks and just be grateful for pauses, both natural and forced. That’s the thing about summits and mountains: they’ll still be there tomorrow, or even the next day. They can wait. And you can’t always be in motion, right? Even hummingbirds stop. We can, too. (Okay, THAT was the last mention!)
Have a great weekend, everyone!
these always make my day! really enjoyed reading this one🥰
I will have to check out that show on Netflix! Hope you enjoyed your day of rest!! 💜