Welcome, August; you really came out of nowhere!
Making time to Wander
Wandering isn’t something most of us participate in. We live and have internalized the hustle culture of productivity and all-around getting stuff done. To be sure, I am a fan of getting things done and checking tasks off my list, but there is also great satisfaction in being able to wander.
Especially when you are in a new place without all the trappings of responsibility and to-do lists ready to remind you.
Lowi & G’s
Summer Reading List!
I am not going to lie; I started to write to all of you about this book before I even finished it. I had about 40+ pages to go, and I was pretty sure I had it all figured out. I was being a smug book reader. The kind who assumes they have the plot all figured out by page 100. By that point, I was already lamenting the profound stupidity of the protagonist. But I also reminded myself I was enjoying fun and soapy summer reads and not studying the prose of Albert Camus, so I adjusted my attitude.
Loving Summer Hours
I am loving the answer to most questions or concerns right now being: summer hours. This isn’t all that formal or even particularly scheduled but summer hours is something I have been doing lately and it’s just what you think. When I get toward the end of the day, and I could continue to grind it out but don’t really feel like it, I stop and proclaim summer hours.
Summer hours is my blanket permission slip to stop hustling. I can’t play this card every day, or even every week but when I can, I am.
Hell’s Hole
It turns out that if you wander far enough, you might find yourself in a place called Hell’s Hole. Now, you might ask yourself why anyone would wander off to a place with such a name on purpose and all I can say is that we had been in the vicinity before and who doesn’t want to say they lived to tell the tale of a place called Hell’s Hole?
A couple of weeks ago, while in the mountains, we were looking for a hike that might not be so busy. I’m not sure what happened during the pandemic, but a lot of non-hikers became hikers during that time and now they won’t stay home. Our trails are slammed and not nearly as peaceful as they were prior to Covid.
So, as we perused the Alltrails app, we looked in an area called Chicago Lakes. We did that trail last year and it was beautiful. When we stumbled upon Hell’s Hole, we laughed and thought, “who in their right mind would do a trail with that name?”
“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
~ John Muir
Lowi & G 