August & everything after

Photo by Samantha McCuen

Hi writers,

I intentionally paused both my Monday Night Writers Workshop and the Durham Writers Salon in August. After 18+ years of going to traditional school, my body is forever on a school schedule. In August I find myself craving some looseness around my daily routine, some afternoons of going to get ice cream, a day lounging by a pool without looking at my email. 

There's something a little melancholy about August, which makes having fun seem like an urgent need. August, to me, carries the heavy weight of something perpetually ending, a feeling that we won't really be able to do everything we want to do after all, so maybe we should put away our to do list. Do you remember, from childhood, the feeling of crawling into a hot car after swimming, your still-damp bathing suit picking up the surrounding heat, a pleasant heaviness in your limbs, your hands slightly sticky from a raspberry popsicle? I search for that feeling every August, and I confess I never quite get there. But there is joy in the searching. 

In August I visited The Nasher (it's free now for patrons!) for the first time in years and had time to linger over a few paintings, remembering that specific hush of a museum space, like a church for art. I spent a morning at Duke Gardens, photographing the red bridge and the water lilies and saw three butterflies that I couldn't capture on camera. I visited the new-ish Rofhiwa Book Cafe and marveled at the vibrant colors of this gorgeous space, thumbing through a book on Decolonizing Wellness. I sampled a chocolate/vanilla swirl froyo at Parker & Otis. I savored a scoop of brambleberry crisp ice cream at the new Jeni's ice cream at Brightleaf, remembering that when I was a child downtown Durham smelled like sweet tobacco leaves. I took long walks and didn't bother putting on a podcast, but instead let my thoughts wander. I updated my Instagram only when I felt like I had something to say. 

I submitted a personal essay to a contest and it won second place. I completed some behind-the-scenes work for an advocacy project that I'll roll out later in the year. I worked on some of my own writing. I also dreamed up the classes you'll see below. 

And now it's almost fall. My Monday Night Writing Workshop and the Durham Writers Salon will start back in September. The weather will get cooler. I'll notice that there are fewer mosquitos, that the cicadas are getting quieter. And then this August, too, will be just a memory.

[Excerpted from my August newsletter, with apologies to the Counting Crows for stealing their line]