Finally: puzzle season. Candied pecans on the stove, Bing Crosby on the speakers. This is the time of year in which we all share excitement over something. For some, it’s sterile snow falling in sheets. Others, a warm, glistening tree and a tower of packages. Still others, your grandmother’s eggnog recipe. Me? Jigsaw puzzles.
When welcoming any new season, I tend to get a bit squirrely with my wardrobe. There’s never a shortage of voices announcing the latest must-have ankle boot or toting this fall’s newest cut of denim. For an unapologetic lover of getting dressed, there’s always the temptation to upgrade.
Vacation came, vacation went. I’ve spent the past few days in the post-getaway rhythm of folding whites, restocking pantries, shaking sand from the car mats. This morning I unpacked my suitcase and returned an unread pile of six books to my nightstand – a welcome reminder that even beloved hobbies pale in comparison to watching
Fall, then.
There are few things I consider myself an expert in, but truth be told: if recharging one’s energy with littles underfoot were an Olympic sport (missed opportunity, Greece), I like to think I’d at least take home a bronze. Whatever you call it: recharging, resting, Introvert breaks, “me” time — it can all feel so,
Few will be surprised to hear I take baby proofing as simply as they come.
I use the word becoming because it’s important. Because, as in anything at all, there is no being a better writer. No arriving as a better writer, certainly no tricks to staying a better writer. There is only becoming, both on the page and off.
I haven’t written anything in a long stretch. It wasn’t intended, never is, the blinking cursor abandoned for house projects like clean garages and a re-carpeted bedroom. Yesterday, I gave up an attempt to patch a hole in the rubber hose in favor of a water balloon toss. This, the beat of our summer –