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There's summer, and then there's _summer_ - that point at which, regardless of what the season says, regardless of what the weather's been, it feels like something's changed, and a new season begins. For me, that's always been July. My partner is a teacher, and has the summer months off. So for her, summer is Summer Vacation, July and August, and for me it's taken on that meaning as well. In school, and then in university, I kept this schedule too, so as I met my partner in university and have been with her since, I've never really known anything different. I can't really defend it in any meaningful way, but summer begins in July.
Not to say that we haven't had hot weather. From May Long through to maybe the middle of June, it was hot here - very hot - the kind of heat you normally get at the tail end of July, just uncomfortably early. Better get used to it. There's going to be worse in the coming years. We'll be lucky if it's just some early heat.
Today a quiet day. No wildfire smoke and it rained all morning - perhaps the grass will look a little nicer soon. The marigolds out back have taken over the pots, towering over the sweet potato vines and the other flowers my partner planted. A beautiful bright yellow, the only variety of marigold she likes. Took the dogs for a walk at lunch. Currently having coffee from the moka pot. Have lots of things to do at work in the coming days, and I'm trying to settle my mind, find an order, tackle everything at speed.
I just finished a real doorstop of a novel. Almost 1300 pages. Hated it, but you know how it goes - a few hundred pages in, you tell yourself you've started, you've come this far, you're not going to cut and run now, are you? And so I finished, and last night I started "Toska", Alina Pleskova's full-length poetry debut. It is everything I needed after that novel. Achingly good. I'm twenty pages in and reading slowly, not wanting to ever finish, though, unlike that last book, for very different reasons.
Canada Day on Saturday. Having a BBQ with friends. Burgers, hot dogs, chips (need to please the picky goddaughter), along with cider, good beer, Miller Lite. The latter for our friend, who likes to knock back a few beers and is very unpicky about how they taste. Which, good for him. We like what we like, whether that's cheap beer, good poetry, whatever.
In the coming weeks, my partner's likely to visit her family. This is the year she's supposed to help her parents have a big garage sale, do the empty-nest-declutter that was supposed to happen last year, the year before that, the year before that. This time for sure. So I might take a day or two off work, do some writing, work on my side projects, get back into any number of things. Summer feels like the right time for that. July and August always feel longer than the months that come before. I'm going to sit out in the yard with a whisky. Have a fire in the evening, watch the logs hiss and spit. I'm going to write happy poems, live each day well. Somewhere out there, someone is thinking of me. Eat your heart out. I'm thriving.