This is my last newsletter for a month, as I’m about to go offline for my usual August break. By now, all my wonderful clients anticipate it with me. Around June, they start inquiring about it. By far, in the decade I’ve been doing this, the most common comment I hear is, “I wish I could do that. You’re a model for me.”   

Of course, not everyone is self-employed with the autonomy I have, and not everyone is part of a household where there is more than one wage-earner. It’s a total privilege to take this unpaid time off. And I truly think more of us could do it if it was important to us. We cannot find our way in this collapsing world if we don’t make the time and space to hear ourselves. We ricochet from over-functioning to under-functioning, distracting ourselves, jeopardizing our health, and often going it alone. Our weekends are recovery, not connection or creative pursuits. This is no way to face what we are up against as a planet and as humans.  

Frank Ostaseski says, “Whatever we give space can move.” If our lives are too tightly planned, there isn’t enough movement, enough margin. There’s no room for surprise, for improvisation, for healing or epiphanies.  There’s also no room to be sad and we may end up numbing out instead of being with what is happening. 

This August, I’m leaving space for: 

  • Reading. I give myself the freedom to buy popular novels to load up onto my e-reader in August. In my queue are John of John, The Calamity Club, and Caitlin Mullen’s Heather. 
  • Time with family. We have our annual trip to Ross Lake Resort with my husband’s family, and my son is driving over from Missoula to be with us. This year, it will be a wild tangle of young adults, and I will have the wonderful choice of staying up late for a poker game or going to bed early with a book. And then we go to Lummi Island with my sister and her family and my parents, where we will have our annual paella feast. 
  • Cleaning my home office. Right now, it’s piles of books, art supplies, client notes, and favorite natural objects. Some of these books need to go to the Little Free Library, and maybe some of these rocks need to go back to the beach! 
  • Reviewing old journals. I have dozens of old journals in a bin that I have never looked at. Lately, in parenting young adults, many wonderings have come up about my 20-year-old self. It occurred to me recently that I could actually know what was in her head and heart!  
  • Swimming. In every body of water I can find, salty and fresh. Swimming is how I know I am alive—I need it like food and water. 
  • Wonder. Once my trips are over, I have several days with absolutely nothing on the calendar. If tradition holds, I will feel very social and want to meet up with people. When I don’t have work to think about, I’m always surprised at how much gas I have in the tank for socializing.  

Thank you for being here with me. Whatever your August holds, I hope you can be present to it, find yourself in it. I’ll be back with you in September!