the blessing of an open window and other wonderments. . .

by bam

the whoosh of summer’s soundtrack is back again. windows were blessedly opened as the stars beckoned last night, as the little numbers on the don’t-breathe-this scale finally slid down to mere double digits. we are breathing again.

canadian forests are burning and we here along the great lake were taking our due. as this noxious cloud wafts back and forth across the continent––making apocalyptic scenes of the brooklyn bridge, choking the air out of cleveland, blocking the view of the john hancock from chicago’s lake shore drive––we were holed up in a seasonal inversion: it’s one thing to be nose pressed to the window when snows are whirling and harsh winds are howling, but the summer sun was shining, the garden was begging attention, and we couldn’t step outside for fear of the poisons that’d swirl in our lungs (and some of us are paying particular attention to what swirls in our leftover lungs).

it’s a curious quirk of humanity, how we long for whatever it is we can’t have. and so i stood nose to the glass watching the summer without me. i longed for my wicker chair, the one that lets me watch mama wren unnoticed. and then i wondered about mama wren’s lungs, and what happens when she warbles or burbles like nobody’s business. her lungs are wee things, and i imagine the toxins that threaten my big ol’ (comparatively) breathers might all but close hers off. so now i am listening extra intently, hoping for that trademark mama-wren burble to come.

the week’s barely-breathable script was apocalyptic preamble. summer is the season of screens in the windows and doors left wide open. the indoors and outdoors, permeably conjoined. except when they’re not. except when the toxins per breath reach uninhabitable levels.

it’s a blessing to watch the curtains stir. to fall asleep to the hummings of nightfall’s lullaby. to hear the distant siren, the train in the offing, the raccoons holding their hootenanny.

when the windows are sealed, and the summer hermetically wrapped at safe distance, there’s little to do but long for the way summer once was. when sunlight glistened. and the creek tickled your toes. and long days in the woods were the very best thing you could do for your soul.

summer is back now. we can breathe again. and we can open our doors and our windows.

and i, for one, intend to breathe deeply.

teddy’s raspberries–three years in the making–finally ripe for the plucking.

summer reading from the e.b. white and kate di camillo files, a celestial pairing if ever there was…

this comes from a glorious letter di camillo, author of because of winn dixie and the tale of despereaux, once wrote to a fellow author who’d written her asking how honest a writer should be with the young children to whom they both wrote (a question that pertains just as vividly to any writing, i’d argue, and a question that has especially animated my writing in recent weeks).

“E. B. White loved the world. And in loving the world, he told the truth about it — its sorrow, its heartbreak, its devastating beauty. He trusted his readers enough to tell them the truth, and with that truth came comfort and a feeling that we were not alone.

“I think our job is to trust our readers.

“I think our job is to see and to let ourselves be seen.

“I think our job is to love the world.”

in yet another conversation di camillo refers to the writing she does as a “shortcut to the heart.”

and when she was awarded her second newbery medal (in 2004 for tale of despereaux and 2014 for flora & ulysses: the illuminated adventures), di camillo brilliantly captured her life’s work as this: “We have been given the sacred task of making hearts large through story. We are working to make hearts that are capable of containing much joy and much sorrow, hearts capacious enough to contain the complexities and mysteries … of ourselves and of each other.”

and finally, this capturing of grief by the tender and brilliant and fierce suleika jaouad, the author of the best-selling between two kingdoms: a memoir of a life interrupted, who was diagnosed with a rare form of acute myeloid lymphoma in 2011, a disease which recurred in late 2021, and for which she has had a second bone marrow transplant. she is married to the brilliant musician and magnificent soul jon batiste. and here’s what she wrote of grief:

“Grief is a ghost that visits without warning. It comes in the night and rips you from your sleep. It fills your chest with shards of glass. It interrupts you mid-laugh when you’re at a party, chastising you that, just for a moment, you’ve forgotten.” 

a more finely-grained exposition of grief i’ve not seen captured. and, by the way, suleika is exceedingly, exceedingly kind i’ve found out.

what stirred you most this week? or stifled you? and what’s topping your summer reading stack? i’ve been imagining a kate di camillo summer’s binge. and suleika’s is already on hold at my friendly local library…