My last newsletter in July was titled, “Let There be Space.” I had it! I experienced, as I do every August, the immense relief, pleasure, and privilege of taking unpressured time off. No social media, airplanes, or email. Letting myself disappear into family life, solo time, books, and a lot of daydreaming. I didn’t even have much to say in my journal. When I’d open it to write, nothing seemed urgent enough. I was not enticed by my innermost thoughts or wooed into planning. I simply wanted to BE. It’s been my experience that creating space doesn’t always mean rest follows. Sometimes there is quite a bit of angst or anxiety. But I’m returning to my life feeling as if I have truly been drinking from a deeper well. 

Some treasures I’ll pull out when I’m being dashed against the rocks of reality:  

  • Christiane Ritter’s book A Woman in the Polar Night. I’ve long been obsessed with survival stories. So many of them are written by men. This gem of a book is about an Austrian woman in northern Norway in 1934, hacking off frozen seal blubber and trying to maintain her sanity. I think of her every day when I I’m tempted to label something as “hard.” 
  • Fluorescent sunset over Fisherman’s Bay on Lopez Island 
  • Finally meeting my friend Jenn’s parents and getting to stay with them. Waking up in the morning and talking about books for 2 hours. Jen’s mom, almost 80, facilitates a non-fiction discussion group for 90 minutes every other week. They are currently reading a book about the origins of the Revolutionary War. When I am 80, may I be learning like her. 
  • Multiple plunges a day in the icy waters of Ross Lake while staying there with the Kangas crew 
  • Solo food and bookstore tour in Seattle—Coyle’s Bakeshop, Ben’s Bread, Biang Biang Noodles, The Pastry Project, Firn, Phinney Books, Elliot Bay Books 
  • Swims in many Salish Sea spots 
  • Paella on Lummi Island with the Murphy crew 
  • Reading “Unreasonable Hospitality” and becoming completely inspired to be more generous and intentional in all the intersections of my life 
  • Singing Billy Strings’ “Mill Town Flood” with Yancey and Wyatt 
  • Dance party with Loretta in the kitchen the night before we took her back to school 

All of this is against the backdrop of a major reckoning for me. It’s happening as a result of reading Sarah Wilson’s “I Eat the Stars,” a book about multi-systems collapse and how the window on reversing climate change has closed. I have finally given up hope. I no longer believe there’s a chance we will learn to live within our limits, and I have stopped putting pressure on myself to believe this. Paradoxically, this has resulted in an incredible sense of liberation and a deepening of my calling to share resources, be a good neighbor, save as much of the natural world as possible, dance, make art, and prioritize love. My yearly August sabbatical is part of that—a refusal to get caught up in the tyranny of the urgent, an acknowledgement that there will be no other, magical time when the decks are cleared. This is it, and we’d better get busy living. There is no better time to turn up the volume on our inner teacher, to be tender with one another, and to cherish our non-human companions. May it be so with you.