Rhena Writes

Tag: summer

  • Happy Summer Solstice

    It’s a few days late, but that’s what happens sometimes. And the thing about summer solstice is that while it might mark the apex of the sun’s power, it doesn’t switch off the next day. It’s a gradual, six month long shift. So the date, June 21, is, in many ways arbitrary. Like a lot of dates and deadlines.

    On Saturday (the date of the solstice) I sat down at my computer to write a blog post. I’d already been to the farmer’s market earlier in the day. And we’d decided to make some lefse to eat with sausages and hot dogs on the grill at our local pool. It seemed a perfect way to soak up these longest hours of sunlight of the year. Years ago, we were in Norway around the time of the summer solstice. It was striking how few hours of dark there were. We weren’t quite far enough north to experience the true midnight when the sun never sets, but it was certainly difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. I realized how near-constant light made me crave the dark.

    Of course, last year, the solstice passed without me really realizing it. From what I can remember, I was at the beginning of chemotherapy treatment. The fact of the earth’s movement around the sun faded into the background. So this year, I’m grateful that I don’t need to be so hyper-focused on the granular details of getting through each treatment, each week, each day, each moment. The earth, tilted as it is on its axis, is moving around the sun. And that’s just fine by me.

    So it was that when I sat down to write a blog post on Saturday, that I already had much of the day planned out, just as I had much of my blog posting and month planned out. Somewhere in the back of my head, I was gunning for one hundred consecutive days of posting to my blog. The solstice was meant to be the 90th day of posting, which meant that I would cap off June with a celebratory post about posting to my blog for 100 days in a row. I’d already thought about how I’d write that 100th post about what I learned posting everyday: how I’d built up my confidence as a writer, how I’d learned to write through all of the internalized voices that I’d allowed to silence me. I was so close to that one hundredth day of posting. I’d already put in 89 days of work.

    And yet. When I sat down to write on Saturday, I went to open the correct tabs as had become habit, and a small voice asked, “what are you doing?”

    I just wasn’t feeling it.

    What I was feeling is that it was the weekend, my kids and husband were home, we had plans to make lefse and go to the pool to enjoy the extra minutes of sunlight.

    I had nothing to prove to anyway, least of all myself.

    Besides, I’d already done 89 days of blogging in a row. It wasn’t as if all the lessons I’d learned and momentum I’d built would just disappear because I didn’t blog on the 90th day.

    So I shut off the computer and went to spend summer solstice with my family. And it was glorious and lovely. I ended up going for two swims that day. I ate well. And enjoyed time with my kids and husband. I slept better than I had possibly in years without the aid of pharmaceuticals.

    There’s inherent tension between having goals and being in the moment. And I’m working through some of that. I fear that if I don’t set goals, then I’ll never get anything done. And I grew up in a culture where self worth is toxically intertwined with productivity. 100 looks nice on the page. And maybe it would garner more attention than 89. But it’s also arbitrary. And I’m not doing this to for attention. And now I just realized that I’m also not doing this (writing this blog, posting daily or regularly) to prove anything to anyone. I’ve already proven everything that I need to the only person I need to answer to: myself.

    And what have I proven? That I’ll always be here to take care of myself, to spend time doing things that make me feel good: to make lefse, to eat good food, to night swim with my kids, to soak up all the hours of sunlight that I can.

    As with many goals that I’ve set for myself over the years, the number one hundred is ultimately arbitrary. What isn’t arbitrary? That the earth circles the sun once a year, that once a year we get the most number of hours of sunlight in a day, and me.

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  • Summer break begins

    It feels like this is the first day of summer break even though the kids have been off for school for a couple of days and even though summer doesn’t officially begin until tomorrow. I think it’s because my husband is off of work today. And this time last year, I was dealing with a new cancer diagnosis. I was so consumed by all of the appointments and details, getting through each day, I was barely aware of the seasons changing. It was a hard time.

    This summer, I’ve been able to look a little bit further forward, planning outings, swimming, taking advantage of farmer’s markets and other simple things that I completely missed last year. I started to try to plan today with my kids, going out to a museum. I was surprised that it was the kids who put the kibosh on that plan. They wanted to laze around a bit, read and maybe go up to swim at the neighborhood pool, enjoy what their own house and backyard have to offer. I realize now that part of me was feeling so guilty about all that I couldn’t do with them last summer and I was kicking off this summer by trying to compensate. As always, I over shot. Thankfully, my kids pulled me back.

    In myriad subtle ways and just in their being, they remind me that we can all be content with what’s right in front of us. We have already been given so much, there’s no need to keep striving for more beyond that.

    So instead of hoping on the metro somewhere else, my son and I made oatmeal raisin cookies. When he was first in kindergarten, I used to make them about once a week. He loved these cookies. It was such a simple pleasure and he acted as if he was starving in the desert and these were actual mana. Today is the first time he’s actually made them with me. I’m shocked by how capable he is, and how much he seems to enjoy my company. And I didn’t need to go even outside of my front door for these experiences and lessons.