Though the autumnal equinox isn’t until September 22nd, today, August 31st, feels like the last day of summer (I’m posting this a couple days after drafting, obviously).
It’s been a good one.
All season, Daphne’s enjoyed going through her old books and picking favorites to read. Jenny’s Pennies by Peter Saverine has been a particularly beloved one this week, and it’s a perfect selection for closing out the warm months.
We’ve also practiced with all of her I Can Read! books, and she’s gotten attached to Pete the Cat: Pete at the Beach by James Dean.
She’s done more painting, too. We gave a new one to her Grammy and Munka for hosting Jer’s 50th birthday celebration. The most recent one, done on the first of her larger canvases, we’re mailing to her Grandma and Grandad.
Daph also enjoyed her half-days of July summer school, and we’ve savored lots of fun time with loved ones, including two sets of her grandparents, three of her uncles, and several friends, both old and new. It’s always good to socialize as much as possible in these easy months because we’re basically on our own in the dead of winter. It’s too hard for people to come visit us with all the snow and ice.
Of course, we’ve done a ton of swimming–in the saltwater pool at Wildflower Inn, in Crystal, Willoughby, Island Pond, and Maidstone Lakes, and at the beach in York, Maine. At York, the waves were high and the water choppy thanks to the hurricane just off the coast. The red flags were flying, signaling that undertows were likely and swimming was forbidden.
That wasn’t going to stop Daph, though. We stayed right by her, allowing her in only waist-deep, and let her play in the waves. She loved waiting for a big one, then sitting down just as it crashed over her, sweeping her back toward the shore. Back home, she had dozens of clumps of seaweed caught in her hair, and she smelled like a fish market. I had to scrub and scrub with two applications of shampoo, and even combing out her wet hair, I was still catching pieces of ocean flora. It was everywhere–on the comb, the bathmat, the tile floor, and of course all over the shower. Quite nasty, actually.
“Now you really are a mermaid,” I told her.
She started fourth grade on Wednesday, August 28th, and had a fantastic first two days of school and a pretty good Friday. Her homeroom and special education teachers are the same from last year, and she’s with a lot of her former classmates, so that’s always beneficial. It helped to ease into a new year with a short week and a long weekend, too.
Having so much time back to myself blew me away last week. It felt like another adjustment, though a good one. I read and wrote a bit, mostly on this blog. I’m easing back into fiction because it always feels daunting after a long break, and I’m considering trying Amy McNee’s Two Week Reset Plan as described in her book We Need Your Art.
I have plenty of projects in mind, but it all feels a little overwhelming right now, and the gentle and forgiving fourteen day schedule McNee recommends sounds like a good way to assuage those weird nerves that come along with creative reentry.
Speaking of books, I thoroughly enjoyed my own grownup summer reading. Alas, I only read five titles–Daph got up too early every day for me to make full use of early morning reading–but that’s ok. Three of those titles were novels published this year, and two of those were debuts–yay! I enjoy supporting new authors. The others were a bestseller from 2020 and a classic, so a good mix.
The classic, which I’m still on now, is Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd.
I love Hardy, and I haven’t read any of his work in several years, not since my twenties. It took me a few chapters to get back into the rhythm of that more complex 19th century syntax, but now I’m trucking along nicely, enjoying the characters and appreciating the pastoral details much more now that I live in the countryside myself. It’s an interesting little introduction to sheep farming, which I appreciate since much of Vermont’s history involved this particular livestock, and I’ve considered making one character in a potential historical novel set here in VT a sheep farmer.
I’m also amused by Hardy’s humor. I don’t remember his other novels having comical moments, but I’m sure they do and I just didn’t pick up on them, or they didn’t stick in my memory. In this novel, his depiction of the rural folk–the farm hands, carters, waggoners, malters, and their wives–is great, right down to their names and dialogue. One little boy is christened Cainy Ball because his mother, ignorant in her Scripture, mixed up who was who between the Biblical brothers, believing she was naming her son after the one murdered and not the murderer. Another farmhand, a hen-pecked man, is referred to mostly as “Susan Tall’s husband.” You can imagine what Susan Tall is like.
Here’s my favorite funny line thus far. It occurs when the heroine, Bathsheba Everdene, who has just inherited a large farm she’s determined to run herself, is handing out wages for the first time. She asks a seasoned employee about two female farmhands, meaning are they good, productive workers? He interprets her question as a moral one and answers, “Oh mem–don’t ask me! Yielding women–as scarlet a pair as ever was!”
My summer reading efforts were rewarded when I won a prize in the St. Johnsbury Atheneum’s drawing!
I rarely win anything, so this was fun. I haven’t spent the gift card yet but will soon, preferably while Daph’s at school so I can enjoy my treat in perfect peace and quiet.
Finally, I received my contributor’s copy of Ditch Life Magazine, a debut literary publication beautifully summer-themed, in the mail a week ago.
I have a piece of contemporary flash fiction in it which was accepted back in April 2024, so it was amazing to finally have the publication in my hands. It arrived accompanied by a lovely thank you note and sticker, and all of it was a nice pick-me-up after that recent rejection.
I was worried that rereading my piece after so long would make me cringe, but it didn’t. Sure, there are a few lines I’d like to go back and edit, but overall, I’m proud to have it among some gorgeous and moving work. The other contributors have impressive bios, so I’m in good company.
All in all, we’ve had a wonderful end to the summer.
The season is definitely turning. Morning temperatures are in the mid-forties and afternoons in the high sixties. My pumpkins and sunflowers are growing well, and there are even a few red and orange leaves scattered here and there in the trees. It looks like we might have an earlier foliage season, given how dry the weather has been. Today, we spent some time at a local corn maze, and it was a nice way to invite the new season in.
I’m looking forward to sharing more about my fall and winter writing plans, which include a zero draft of a novel-length WIP, a gothic romance. Plus, I have an original fairy tale coming out in a few weeks in the Red Herrings Society’s magic and fantasy anthology, Spellbound.
I’m looking forward to teasing more about that, including some of the stories by my fellow contributors, so stay tuned!
I truly did try my best to squeeze this post in as my fourth and final one for August, but circumstances kept working against me, so I just had to give it up and post today. The world will not end because I didn’t upload four times in August.
I did write two more August posts last week, but I didn’t send out email notifications because I didn’t want to flood inboxes. My own is overwhelming me, so I know how irksome that can feel.
If you’re interested, you can catch up on those previous August posts here:
The Books that Made Me: Final Installment
and
Two Haikus, Plus Some Thoughts on Versatility
Thanks for reading, and please feel free to share anything you’d like about your own summer or even your fall plans. I hope you’re enjoying these liminal days.
See you next week, when I’ll get back to a more regular posting schedule. I’m hoping to post on Thursday or Friday of each week.
XOXO,
Jenn
Jennifer Shaw 