summer zen

favorite bits of summer so far:

-harvesting a three pound cabbage from our garden row this morning
-seeing the tomato plants double in size every time i visit them
-reading lots and lots and lots of books (recent recommendations: plenty, the worst hard time, and, if you are so inclined, the organic farming manual)
-waking up at sun up and deciding that i can sleep for another hour or two
-summery wraps for dinner with veggies and homemade hummus
-that itchy feeling you get after your first sunburn
-summer fruits for dessert
-discovering how easy it is to make your own cheese (new projects!)
-the smell of lemon trees during long, warm evenings
-the way the hills start looking hazy after a few days of hot weather
-watching the tour de france with erik
-hints of a chaco tan
-iced basil and mint tea

*

i am currently re-reading zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. i will freely acknowledge that this is at least the third time that i have attempted to read this book. each of the previous times i have just struggled and struggled to understand and make sense of the meandering and (apparently) purposeless prose. what the hell is this guy talking about anyway? all of the last times i tried, i ended up moving on to greener pastures by the time i hit page thirty. when i noticed a used copy of it sitting in the spirituality (?) section at third street books though (sporting a sweet old cover, yellowed and well-thumbed pages, and a friendly three dollar price tag), i decided to give it another chance... and i love it.

four times the charm, and i have come to see that this is one of those books you have to wait a while to be able to read. maybe you need to be in the right frame of mind. maybe you need to be feeling particularly patient. maybe you need to sit down to read it with a glass of iced tea and no distractions. i don't know. regardless, i hear ringing through these words so many of the sentiments that i have been carrying around inside of myself these past months, that reading it feels like sitting in a hammock. weird analogy i know, but you must know that feeling: the way you sink into it carefully, and at first you are certain you will wobble over the edge to your doom. then you learn to sit back and trust it. it curls around your body, suspends you in the open air, lets the brush of a breeze rock you mildly back and forth.

i think what i am most enjoying about this book is that it doesn't rush itself. it takes the time to notice red wing blackbirds, to reflect on the meaning of landscape, the way that it moves us as much as we move across it. it notes the significance of intuition and reflects on the modern affliction/situation of technological reliance and (utter, in most cases) lack of savvy. all things i have been thinking about. all things that i think i needed to hear someone else say.

hooray for reading books in their proper season. it makes me want to return to so many other books that i think were completely lost on me: to kill a mockingbird, of mice and men, a room of one's own, the great gatsby.

*

i think i will make coleslaw for dinner. what to do with the other half of that monster cabbage...


b