Five Things to Remember from June
June included a trip to see family, which doesn't count for these five things. I doubt I forget that visit any time soon--it was lovely to spend time together.
So below is this month's list of five things from the month that are memorable to me. (This practice, which I started only in January, has been very interesting. I make notes all month and sometimes I return to the document and think, "that was only last week?" But maybe that's just how all of 2025 is gonna be.)
One. White wine vinegar. It’s perfect for dressing greens in the summer. Balsamic is great too but sometimes you need a lighter option. I'm not sure what finally made me choose to buy some white wine vinegar, but I ran across a lentil salad recipe calling for red wine vinegar recently so today I added that to our pantry. Fun times ahead!
A sunny morning near the summer solstice
Two. Antihistamines. Excellent additions to
springtime. Thanks, science, for medicine!
Three. The question WHY? I’m fighting with my
Fitbit. Why? I resent that it tells me things about my body--I know, that's its job. And I can't completely object because I have no way (or interest in) tracking my
heartrate any other way. But I’m also right to object. My Fitbit can guess (not 100 percent accurately)
how long I slept and how deeply asleep I was, and it can assign all the numbers it wants, but none of that adequately explains why I do or don’t feel rested. Anyway, the Fitbit is also on the list, along
with social media scrolling, of “what would I be doing with my life if I weren’t
arguing with technology?”
Crabapple tree at the edge of our driveway,
flowering its little heart out.
Four. Seasons. This is the season of peak sunlight
and I’m enjoying it. We haven’t seen as much as we’d like because of wildfire
smoke plus overcast-but-not-raining skies. But I’m still thrilled with it.
Five. Quiet courage. Aging means making choices
that sometimes are unpleasant, but better they be your choices than changes
forced upon you. I wrote a book about it. Actually, both my books are about
that, in different ways. Many folks in my life seem to be aging, and I have the
utmost respect for people facing changes in whatever ways they can.
In June, I posted about the following books on Instagram:
A colouring book I'm enjoying: Hidden Creatures, by Åse Balko
Who by Fire and Who by Water, both by Greg Rhyno
Etta and Otto and Russell and James, by Emma Hooper
Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, by Pádraig Ó Tuama