Macbeth in a hotel

I had a rushing, swooping swell of love for New York yesterday. It just hit me as I emerged from the subway, feeling sunshine on my cheekbones for the first time in days. After a few false starts, it's finally fall on the East Coast. That tumbling love feeling stayed with me all day, and then all night as I shuffled myself, behind a white mask, at the McKittrick Hotel for Sleep No More.

It is hard to explain the experience. (If you want to understand what it is, read this NYT review.) (Potential spoilers ahead.)

In a silent elevator, the conductor, with his Irish lilt, blocked me from leaving on the third floor, even though K, E, and S had already spilled out. The doors closed and I stifled a giggle; no one could see my smile when the conductor leaned into me and whispered, "I think you'll find luck tonight."

I did. The first room I discovered when I was finally let off had a single crib centered in a shaded room; bursting up above it were about 75 headless baby dolls, frozen in a choreographed routine. I stood there alone, taking it in; an actor appeared and performed a show around the crib, just for me. She left, and I stayed.

That was my favorite floor of Sleep No More -- children's bedrooms, filled with vintage books and strewn-about bedclothes. An office, with open drawers I could rifle through, letters half-written in old Smith-Coronas. A parlor, with chaises covered in white sheets; a turntable playing old jazz, the kind of haunting music I can't get out of my head. I went back to that floor twice, just to re-check on the bedrooms, to see if the same books were still open to the same pages; to see if the dolls had moved.

Eventually I made my way to the next floor, where I watched  a woman hanging laundry (it was actually wet -- a nice touch); then a bell rang, and she paused, shrugged on a jacket, and the crowd of about 30 rushed after her. She ended up walking through a wooded maze and meeting up with another nurse; they drew on the ground with chalk and kissed. They were in a tragic sort of love.

In the psychiatric ward I stood alone, surrounded by empty beds with diagnoses nailed to the walls and blood on the sheets. I waited for an actor or a dancer to appear -- there was so much potential in that room -- but when none showed, I reluctantly left, wandering until I found a woman trying to leave her husband, suitcase in hand; he threw her against a wall and left. You have to find your own show in Sleep No More.

Back in the lounge, I took off my mask and listened to French '30s music and relished my returned visibility; the mask had made me feel like a ghost, like a peeping Tom. For a second I forgot I didn't need to be scared anymore -- the game was over.

Today, in Things I Can't Get Enough Of: The Secret Circle, and season reads

"Planets are gathering at the key north, south, east, and west angles of your chart, and those are considered to be highly energetic points." Here is an excerpt from my horoscope this month. (Truly, read Susan Miller. She is amazing.)

I suppose it's because I don't have a religion -- there is much to say about that, and all of it positive -- but because I don't, I've always been intrigued by the universe. The first thing I do whenever I step outside after sunset is look for the moon. I have a cluster of stars tattooed on my inner left ankle. I believe in the power of the elements. I have energy shifts in my body, I have experiences that can't be explained. I try to be conscious of what I offer the world, and what I take.

I tend to read seasonally. In the autumn, I want crisp books, fresh starts, high school hallways, Homecoming dances. I want the turning of the leaves to breathe through my pages. I want sharp winds. I got all of that, plus a lesson in crystals and books of shadows, in The Secret Circle books.

I've talked about witches before, how I still half-expect that someday on an important birthday I'll wake up with powers, or will find myself tapping on tree roots, barefoot in a nightgown, after sleepwalking through a dream. (I don't know. There are no woods around me. I don't even wear nightgowns. And yet, this expectation persists.) Clearly, I'm not the only one with an affinity towards them, especially this time of year, my favorite.

The Secret Circle series is from the early 90s, and you can tell that's the case, and I mean that in the best way. They are vastly different from the television show that's on the CW this season. [I like the books better, but that's so boring to say; they're certainly darker and more dramatic -- but less melodramatic -- than the show, and much more thoughtful.] I read them intensely. I bought some (more) crystals. They did that thing where they seeped into my brain and I kept forgetting whether my memories were from the books or from real life.

I never plan it, but every year in October, I have a day where autumn in all its glory fully hits me. I'll find myself with a free afternoon, or an open weekend, when some cable channel I forgot I had is playing a creepy-movie marathon. I unearth my Halloween decorations and light some candles, and the evening paints itself around me as I get lost in some other world. This time, it was in an old high school in Massachusetts, with a 12-person-strong coven and a quilt tangled around my feet.

Thoughts from underground

I like sitting in an empty apartment with the windows open and my curtains wafting up and down and back and forth as waves of thunder move their way down my block. The cars make so much noise; there is always sound, and I'm reminded that there is much to love about city living -- the convenience, of course, but also the community, the way this place changes from hour to hour. I marvel at the sheer number of people who must live on my single block, how most of us migrate to the river to ride an underground train twice a day; how decades ago, someone decided that was a good idea, and people got to work building something once unimaginable, and so here we are. And yet. Then there is the beach, especially in winter, where the long streets are wide and quiet; the sand, unsifted and lonely. I have a special affinity for deserted resort towns; I imagine if I were a photographer that would be my project -- a global trek, in the off-season, to all the beaches of the world, snapping the extended shadows and peeling boardwalks and abandoned plastic buckets. But I'm not a photographer, and I have a job I love and people and tall buildings and sleek sidewalks I couldn't live without. So here I am, still always splitting my time between the two.

I suppose that's my solution, though it feels entirely too indulgent and yet, oddly, also within reach.

My deep confession is that I don't know where I want to live, so I just keep living here and there and the roads in between. The drive is always nice, at least.

The requisite post about banned books

I used to sneak into my big sister's room to steal two things: her Seventeen magazines and her VC Andrews books. I laugh now, really, at how different those two types of reading are, and yet at the time -- when I was 10 and 11 -- they seemed to represent the same thing to me: maturity. The answers to the secret questions I hadn't yet formed. What the world must look like beyond my little beach town in the woods.

I think there's an age range where a controversial book sails right over a kid's head; like when I read Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret in third grade and had NO IDEA what was going on, but was completely unconcerned by it. (I'm pretty sure I read it, shrugged my shoulders in confusion, and put it back on the bookshelf and grabbed another Baby-sitters Club.)

And then, of course, there's the age where controversial books TERRIFY you. And I am staunchly pro-books-that-terrify -- and of course, pro-books-that-make-you-question-everything-you-thought-you-believed.

I don't read VC Andrews today, and I'm sure I would probably find them overwrought and, well, kind of gross if I did, but that's okay. They are still important books, because they're books that partly formed (and informed) me. And I am grateful beyond belief that I had parents who encouraged all of my reading, no matter what kind or how inappropriate.

So thanks to them, and to my sister for her frankly uncreative hiding places.

Retreat dreams

I read a quote* the other day about how, if you leave someone or a group of people feeling anything less than stellar about yourself, or the world, or the future, or the past, you’re spending time with the wrong people. Tonight is my monthly girls’ dinner, which sounds like some sort of Sex and the City throwback or feminist coven or sorority meeting, and it sort of is all three of those, in a way, but mostly it’s just a set time in the calendar for me to catch up with some of my favorite people; people who leave me feeling like I’ve risen when we part.

I’ve had this overriding need for a “break” lately – from lots of things, but nothing I can really name, so it’s hard to explain – and today, as I crammed myself into a subway car, carrying heavy bags that leave ridges in my shoulders, trying to amp myself up for another long day, because aren’t they all just so long? Is it just me?, I let myself entertain the notion of escaping. And I mean really escaping – like, withdrawing from the known world for a month, retreating to a cabin in Montana with no internet access, and just decompressing and being and thinking and writing.

It’s a lovely daydream, but alas. I can’t. There is too much to do, always, and there is always a fine sheen of guilt for not getting it all done in the time or manner on which I had planned, and I am an adult, despite this hissy fit I seem to be having, who should be willing and able to handle her own baggage, and my problems are first world problems anyway, because as Louis C.K.’s standup goes, I could be someone who hasn’t had a glass of clean water in a decade, or someone whose daughter never came home, but instead I am an American, a thriving one, who has nothing to complain about (other than the crazy Tea Partiers and my eroding reproductive rights). And plus, I just really want to see these friends tonight, and every month, for our dinner, which I would not be able to do from a cabin in Montana.

*Okay, it was someone’s Facebook quote. But it was attributed to a real person. I just can’t remember who.

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Processing time

I slipped out in between rain showers last night to unearth Freedom from my car, where it had been sitting since my beach evacuation, and turned in early to catch up on it. it had been so long -- nearly two weeks! -- since I'd last picked it up that I had to re-read some pages, finding the groove I'd been in.

It came quickly. And so I read, the weight of the pages, the binding, tiring out my arms. (I may be too used to ebooks these days. I've lost my reading muscles.)

Anyway, a few pages in I was reabsorbed, and after some time had passed I looked up at a sudden noise and was surprised to find I was at home instead of on the Pearl Street beach. There was no sun -- just my ceiling light. A trickle of sand rained down on my stomach, nearly landing on my bed, but it wasn't the same, of course. It couldn't be.

I spent some time in Sri Lanka one January, rebuilding houses washed away by the 2004 tsunami. Back then I wrote this about it on 100words.com:

Underneath a waning moon we sat on the ledge of the bar, silent. There is too much to think about tonight, this last night here. The fact that we are all here together; that this trip has changed us all; that we will never be as close as we are right now. So instead of thinking, I am watching: the look of triumph in Czech Peter's eyes. The smirk on Buraq's mouth. The thatched roofs and surfboards lining this bar, reminding me of LBI. I am taking it all in one last time, because I will never be here again.

I just remember sitting there, carving out the moment, knowing it would never be able to be recreated. And I suppose that's what everything is, most of the time: a moving memory. Things change so quickly that we can never relive the best times; they're never quite the same, despite identical staging and direction. The planets just never realign. Freedom is just not the same in my apartment as it was on the beach.

Sometimes I coast alongside work and life for weeks at a time, and then suddenly stop and gasp for air, for time to process. It can take minutes or hours for me to realize what's happened, where I've been, what it means. Even when it's mundane. It all just has to find its way into my bones. It has to become part of my story.

I did that last night, listening to the alternating silence and showers, like footfalls on the roof. And I'm doing it now, and this is my way of thanking you all for letting me.

How do you work?

This is a week between vacations, so I'm back at work but prepping to leave again -- this weird push/pull between settling back in and jetting off. (Tough life, right? Two vacations within three weeks? Also, my diamond shoes are too tight.) (+1,000 if you get the reference.) (I mean, not like Friends is this underground reference or anything.) (Yes, shuddup, I still love Friends.) I'm still reveling in last week, despite its harried ending. For example, my friend T. is a real treat, and I think last week was the most concentrated amount of time I've spent with her. She comes and goes as she pleases, generally; at the beach, this meant she would be her birdlike little self in the kitchen most mornings, mixing hummus and chopping vegetables and seeping some strange-smelling tea, before disappearing for hours on end. She doesn't text as a general rule, so we just had to trust she (and the second key -- and with a house full of nine people, that second key is critical) would come back before nightfall and join us for dinners. She always did. But that's a different story.

She had work to do on vacation -- a syllabus for a college class she teaches -- and I, needing to get some writing time in (#omgIamsoclosetofinishingthisbookbutnotreally), commiserated. One afternoon we left the beach early, closing the glorious day behind us to retreat into a quiet-for-once house. I made an Arnold Palmer (um, with vodka. It was vacation!) and settled myself into the kitchen table, earphones on, and pumped out 1,200 words. T., meanwhile, did not. As best I can tell, she cleaned (much appreciated), fluttered about, and stared at me a lot.

As it turns out, she is one of those "everything must be perfect and I must have a routine" kinds of workers/writers -- her hot chocolate must be made just so, her desk must be clean, her fingernails filed, and so on. As she put it later, she "must be ready for inspiration." She didn't understand how I, with my sandy feet and a house full of ladies coming and going and talking, Madonna playing in the background, could shut out the world and write for a while, right there in the center of the kitchen.

This is the thing one learns after being paid to write for years on end: you can't be precious about it.

A few years ago, I booked a "writing retreat" for myself. It was the off-season on my beloved island, and I escaped from the city, armed with my laptop and a driving need for solitude, and stayed on the deserted island for three days, intending to finish my first manuscript. It was awesome. It was helpful. It was productive. And I plan on never doing it again.

I love writing, but sitting down to actually do it is the hardest part of the process for me. And I needed to teach myself to be able to write anywhere and everywhere, no matter what's happening around me, whether there's some decaf brewing or not. And this applies to my professional writing as well as my personal. Because there are always deadlines to meet, and there's usually not always a chance to disappear for four days, in a silent hotel on an empty beach, to meet them.

Though, seriously, how incredible would it be if there were?

How do you work -- with a routine, or without?

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Flashback Friday: Remember that time we got evacuated?

Remember in my previous entry, I was raving about all the time I had to do things on vacation? Well, then this happened. So today's flashback is about, well, yesterday.

We had a 9am yoga class on the beach, facing the ocean on a sparkling morning where I had nothing but a distant sailboat to focus on as I balanced in my tree pose. Then we picked up breakfast and coffee at our favorite market (which is conveniently on the corner of our beach rental house) and ate and drank on the porch, watching the clouds wind themselves over what had been a sunny morning. We changed for the beach, knowing a storm was on the way that evening, ready to wrap ourselves in blankets on the sand. It was all beautiful.

I don't remember how or when the hurricane panic set in. It feels like one minute everyone was fine, and the next, everyone's phones were ringing and the lifeguards had changed the flags and all the locals were talking about what time to leave. We left the beach and decided to walk around the shops a bit. We ran into my first grade teacher; I bought a sweatshirt. Everyone tried on shoes. We bought matching sunglasses. We knew our vacation would likely be cut short; we just didn't know by how long.

And the whole time, a quiet doom was seeping into us. The Beach Haven gas station had two long lines of cars wrapped around the block, waiting to fill up so they could leave the island. (By 6pm last night, it had run out of gas.) Many conversations ensued about what to do (bus? train? drive? but could we get gas? would it take hours to get off the island, with its one bridge on and off?). We called a house meeting, which was awesome and felt like an episode of The Real World.

We packed up our rental in record time and just...left. It was already stormy (not Irene-related) and that just added to the heightened sense of panic, making us all feel like the hurricane was nipping at our heels and would be here any second. About 20 minutes off the island, the skies cleared. No one was talking about the hurricane. Things felt normal. The hives I'd grown on my neck disappeared.

Today, of course, is glorious. It would have been a perfect beach day.

Stay safe, friends.

Wimbledon every morning

My beach rental faces the island's busiest tennis courts. Each morning one of us begins the day by putting on the coffee and putting out the porch seat cushions, sipping contemplatively as she decides who to root for in each match and what an appropriate time is to wake everyone up to get the day's adventures started. And they are adventures. Yesterday we were on the beach, of course -- a glorious morning. I stretched out on a towel on the sand, and after some time began wondering why the kids next to me were digging their hole so aggressively -- the sand was shifting under me, like the earth was giving me a rough massage. I sat up to find out the source, when E. announced "Um, that's an earthquake." And so it was. (For the record, half of the people on the beach seemed entirely unconcerned; the other half, me included, kept a close eye on the tide to watch for any receding water. Not that we had anywhere to run to...).

It's only Wednesday, and I'm here until Saturday, and each morning I have to remind myself that there is time to do everything and nothing; time to read (Freedom, for the record, which I am reluctantly enjoying), time to write, time to sleep, time to visit all the places that formed me, time to play round after round of Apples to Apples with my friends.

For someone who thinks there's never enough time, this is the height of indulgence.

P.S. Those are jellyfish in this picture. They don't sting, but on days when the water is warm, you can see them rising and falling in the waves, and they litter the drift line like some sort of jellyfish graveyard. They glimmer in the sunlight. I hate them but they are incredibly beautiful, and I find myself rooting on the kids who throw them back into the ocean; a losing but honorable battle.

A kindred month

(Is that even a thing?) I am not a yoga evangelist necessarily, but I do love taking a class 1-2 times per week, and how (at a minimum) it's fixed my hamstring/sciatica issues and super-improved my lower back pain (and no, I am not an old lady, why are you looking at me like that?), and, too, it, along with reiki (my amazing practitioner is here, please do yourself a favor and go see her), has improved my life in ways that are hard to explain.

That is why it pains me to admit that sometimes I fail at yoga.

Earlier this week I was in class with my favorite teacher. She announced we'd be focusing on feet. Well, ouch. I think I must keep a lot of tension in my feet, which I suppose is better than keeping it elsewhere? Anyhow, we did lots of new, foot-focused things. It became clear early on that my feet were having none of it. An all-out rejection of the poses, in fact. I stumbled and nearly fell. (More than once.) My foot began cramping up. I got a weird ache in my left knee, and my right ankle. I flat-out couldn't do several of the poses.

I am human. I don't like not being good at things, especially things I am normally okay at. But it felt like one of those days where I couldn't get my head in the game. I left class feeling the opposite of how I normally feel after yoga.

It was disconcerting.

That scattered, dreamy feeling is still with me today -- which, let's face it, isn't unusual. I have learned over the past few years to accept my spaciness, the need I often have for something or someone to ground me back here to the dirt, the cement, the falling leaves. I like the push and pull between earth and sky; how I am usually balancing on a wire between the two. I like the view from here. I like the people that catch me on either side, and I'm grateful for them.

This morning, in my dress and cardie and sandals, a gust of wind scattered some leaves off trees and I realized mid-August is also on a wire, bleeding thunderstorms and heat waves one week, and cool rain and shadows the next. And for the first time, maybe, I respected her a little more than usual.

Image via lululemonathletic

And now Ray LaMontagne is stuck in my head.

This is kind of true! I mean, it's a bit of a downer, but I mostly agree with the sentiment. Summer is over, it says, by the 4th of July; "the plans you made have either fallen through or have been executed half-heartedly and with regret. The failures of the season have already been written in the Book of Life underneath all the failures of summers past."

The timeline of summer has shifted over the years. As a kid, of course, it was decided by school, two bookends that determined when you were free and when you weren't. As a teen, summer started even earlier -- Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend if you worked in a resort town like me, or early May to mid August if you're in college, no matter the weather, no matter how many finals you still had to take. Now, summer is whenever you can get your hands on it.

Already, the official beginning of summer -- June -- feels like a distant memory, clouded by the heat and weight that was July. It's true the sunlight feels different now than it did eight weeks ago; it's true I'm still waiting for a tan that will likely never come, and I've forgotten to buy that new pair of flip-flops I wanted. Unopened bottles of sunblock are taking up space in my bathroom. I haven't yet been in the ocean.

But!

I will be on vacation in 1.5 weeks, finally; a sure-to-be blissful week in a beach house with some dear friends. The island might be half empty (full?), and it will probably feel like we're closing some sort of chapter there, because August always does (in that same way Sundays always do), even as it crawls forward like a lazy spider. So I'm not done with summer yet.

Sing it, Ray.

August gardens

Not normally one for gardens, I have a growing love for my parents' backyard this summer. Over the past few years my mom has developed a green thumb, and on any given summer day she is out back picking her fresh tomatoes and strawberries, pulling leaves of basil and sprigs of rosemary to add to her dinner, watering the pink and red flowers that dot the horizon in their hanging pots. On weekends my dad mows the lawn and fixes the windowboxes out front; if I'm home visiting, he'll wash and clean my car for me, without asking. (A nice surprise if you can get it.) The dogs lounge, then roll around in the freshly-cut grass, stretching out their backs and shaking off the clippings. Sometimes it feels like an episode of The Wonder Years, old-timey and idyllic, without all the bad men's shorts.

But back to the garden. Here in the foreground are real live pumpkin patches, two kinds, and one trails back in a curve to my favorite plant of all, the butterfly bush. This whole section of the backyard was an unexpected garden -- the bay winds blew some stray seeds there, and nature did its thing. It is dangerously close to overtaking the lower deck (you can see a swath of the deck in the bottom right; yes, it's red, or "country red" as my parents like to say.). I cannot wait for fall to see how many pumpkins appear, though I'll mourn the missing butterflies.

And here is the strawberry plant -- in full and close up. My niece tends to steal all of the ripe ones (we can all take a lesson from her, I think -- seize what you want before it's gone) but she left a few behind, and I popped one in my mouth, sweet as candy and redder than the petals that bloom beside it.

Gardening is a lot of work; I am not always patient. When it hasn't rained for days one must step in; as quickly as new leaves and petals and fruits come forth, other ones die and must be picked. Then there are the spiders that build forts over some of the plants, especially at night; there is always a risk of getting caught in a sticky silver web when you try to coax guests outside for some midnight margaritas on the deck. There are bees.

But I think it is all worth it. Especially the midnight margaritas.

Bar reflections

I am in love with this article, in which a bartender talks about vodka and first dates and chardonnay and what it all means. You could say I love bars. But what that really means is probably something different than what most people think. I don't love "Let's find a crowded, no-atmosphere bar that's playing Britney Spears and do shots and try to score" kinds of bars. Rather, I love the stories happening within bars; I love the dark wood, the candlelight, the way women slip off their slingback heels under a bar stool to stretch out their feet when they think no one is looking. I love how people can be their best or worst selves there, depending on the evening, and the company. Most years, on the night of my birthday when I've invited friends out for a drink, I try to be the first person there, so I can order something, sip it slowly, watch the people around me, and mark my luck at seeing another year pass.

Too, I love ordering a drink, and trying to guess what it makes the bartender assume about me. I am a different person when I order a dirty martini (sassy) than I am when I order a Sam Adams seasonal (conversational, casual), or a prosecco (celebratory), or a gin and tonic (nostalgic for my family). When I ask for a Tanqueray, I'm asserting something about myself; I'm letting you know what you're in for.

I am a different breed than the lady in this article, but I am trying to experiment the way she seems to -- namely, by trying to get into bourbon. Tips are appreciated, for me (on what to try) and for whatever bartender you frequent (when you order).

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Flashback Friday: Sylvia Plath

A serious question: is there a female college student in the world who can survive without owning a copy of The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath?

I am willing to wager that the majority of rooms in the T/W dorms at The College of New Jersey 10-15 years ago housed at least one copy. There's just something so college about Sylvia; kind of like, I don't know, Guster and frat parties and rolls of quarters. I wonder if they include it on the checklist of things to bring for incoming freshman.

The beauty about The Collected Poems is that even though I think of it in conjunction with college, I still get satisfaction from it today. I don't get the chance to read a lot of poetry anymore, but there are nights when I hunker down with it, flip to my many dog-eared pages, and read aloud my favorites. (I do this with Margaret Atwood and Mary Oliver and WH Auden, too.)

Each of my sisters also own copies, and last year when my Girls Write Now mentee went off to college I bought her one, because it just feels like a rite of passage. And yes, this may be my nostalgia talking, but there's something special about Sylvia and her relationship with 18 year old girls (women?). She just speaks to us.

Snow in July

These things are all related:

• Yesterday I walked my normal route to work, down Greene Street between Houston and Prince, only it was blocked off to traffic as film crews set up a shot. I saw a man hanging Christmas ornaments from a storefront, positioning a red velvet bow just so.
• Last night I had a sudden pang for winter, my favorite season; summer is only halfway through and already I'm itching to dig out my sweaters.
• Today Greene Street was back to normal, except for a 4-foot stretch of snow, melting on the curb. A man in front of me did a double-take, then stopped to take pictures.

New York: it really is the place where dreams come true.

Flashback Friday: Looking East

I am stealing this trope from someone, but I am hoping he doesn’t mind. Each Friday, I’m going to post a Flashback – a book, song, movie, whatever – because, let’s face it, I’m a Cancer and we practically tattoo our nostalgia on our foreheads. Today’s Flashback Friday: Jackson Browne.

I had a cool boss when I worked at my favorite job on Long Beach Island, and she introduced me to Jackson Browne. Looking East played in at least one of the stores each day, so when I would make tee shirt drop-offs or pick up a friend for our break, he'd be there, coming out of the seven-disc player, muffled by hooded sweatshirts. I got to know the CD well. One night on a summer about 14 years ago, my boss, a new mom and barely 30 years old, got into a car accident she didn’t survive, and I stood in a blacktop church parking lot on the bay during her funeral, tears mingling with sweat, singing this song in my head, over and over.

I didn’t mean for this to be sad; I just think of her often, and so I think of Jackson Browne often. Her death was really the first one I had experienced (lucky for me, considering I was in my late teens) and those kinds of things usually carve new synapses into your brain, leaving you permanently marked.

Anyway, the funny thing I just learned about this song and this album is that it was released in the mid-90s. This whole time, I thought it was from much earlier than that, like most of the music we listened to in those stores. The more you know!

Endings

What a weird, sad week.

I am so over crying in front of a screen.

Whatever it's like, it's here: summer.

I bit into a fresh blueberry and it tasted like earth, like dirt, like hot sun and dry fields where farmers wore gloves and wiped rolling tears of sweat from their collarbones and somewhere, a great American novelist was watching, observing, getting ready to write it all down. All this from a lone, navy, pungent blueberry. I grew up on a beach, but the sun today is making me think of an imagined farmland. It's land I've never really seen; the middle of America, except for a brief week in St. Louis and a weekend in Chicago and a layover in Detroit, is a mystery to me. I don't know the ways people live out there, but I suppose it's much like here, except without the cement walls weighing them down.

Or maybe it's more like northern California, all wineries and salt-of-the-earth types, which is probably not true but just what I've dreamed up after two vacation stints in San Francisco and Napa/Sonoma.

Whatever it's like, it's here: summer. I spent the weekend before last on a field on the bay watching music on three different stages, dirt blowing into our eyes, caking our cheekbones and ears, wondering when I lost some ambitions, but feeling my bones loosen up with the idea, with the heat.

Then I spent the holiday weekend here in New York (the first time I hadn't spent it on a beach somewhere), holding hands and wondering when I became okay with new traditions, because I am okay with new traditions.

Nurturing creativity

I had a life-changing question hit me one day in my AP English class during my senior year of high school: what if I was not, or never would be, an “ideas person?” My oldest friend L. is one of those Tracy Flick types of girls (and I say that with love, truly -- I think girls should strive to be like that) who raised her hand constantly with idea after idea – creative bursts that popped up like fireworks. I, contrastingly, was someone who was used to stewing on things for a while – days, weeks – before an idea or a solution to a problem would come to me. And even then, it would only be one, and usually mediocre. So I sat there that spring day of senior year, stumped at how L. managed to think of things, and so quickly!, and vowed: I would become an “ideas person.” It became a life goal.

I came across this article from The Atlantic today. It struck a chord. Because here’s the dirty little secret about creativity, I’ve found: you can transform yourself into an ideas person, a creative thinker, into someone who sees the world just a smidge differently than everyone else, if you work at it. Because it’s mostly about consciousness.

Seems counterintuitive, no? That in order to become more creative you have to work harder at it? Because isn’t creativity something inherent, something we either have or don’t have? Well, I vote no. I think creativity lives in a lot more people than we think; and I like what The Atlantic piece says about finding ways to nurture it, even in corporate environments.

I nurture my creativity as often as I can – consciously or not. When I unplug and take a yoga class or go for a run on the water, that’s nurturing my creativity. When I see a movie I didn’t think I wanted to see, that’s nurturing my creativity. When I cook a new meal, tell a new joke, ask a stranger a question, that’s nurturing my creativity.

What do you do to nurture yours?

During the heat wave last week (yes, I consider 90 degrees a heat wave, what of it?) I came home and found K. reading The Baby-sitters Club Super Special #7, Snowbound! (with the exclamation point, natch). Because what better time to read about a bunch of baby-sitters stuck in a snowstorm than a sweltering, humid Memorial Day weekend?

It stuck in my mind only because I hadn't re-read any of my fave BSCs recently, and I missed them, the way you miss your favorite couch and quilt when you have a cold. Today opened up gloriously for me after a great few weekends full of that perfect combination of busy-ness and fun, and I walked home in the late morning sunlight, thinking about my upcoming summer and beach house plans and boating trips and birthdays. Which, of course, got me thinking about Sunset Island.

I have yet to meet anyone else who read the Sunset Island books. (In real life, I mean. The lady behind the Dairi Burger has clearly read them.) They're the closest books I've ever found to my own teenage experience, particularly when it comes to setting -- the island, the work/fun balance, the class differences. So I read them over and over, remembering both my own island history and who I was when I first read them, so it's all kind of meta.

Anyway, summer! I have some exciting things lined up for the season, including some great books on deck. What about you?