A fat slice of lemon bobbing in the depths of black tea and ice; sweat sliding down the cylinder of the glass.
Escaping Scientology, white fragility, forensic science and plant science and the training of bloodhounds used together to find dead bodies, Black Lives Matter leaders, disabled gay men and their stories, graphic novel representation of Deafness, the relationship between a father and son when the father is an alcoholic underwater welder, comedy, a graphic novel about the use of they/them pronouns, and a Minnesotan murder mystery.
These are some of the themes and story lines of the books I read this summer, the last of which I ended earlier today.
Yes, there is overlap with the fall as far as I'm concerned: Another year of grad school started last week, but one must savor the final drops of blueberry sweet tea before trading it in for a mug full of something warm.
(pause)
I've been thinking of presence as of late. And how, when in doubt, your body knows the answer. Try it sometime. Try it now. What is something you have been feeling uncertain about? Something that you overthink when trying to find an answer. Close your eyes. Focus on it. Get real still and then, while silently sitting, feel where the pulls are within your body. Does your heart beat wildly in excitement and hope? Does your stomach drop and you get that pull from the side of your abdomen that says "Stay away from that..."?
It's both strange and beautiful that we have such clear compasses within us if we can just matte the sound. (Here I think of any person who is unfamiliar with how sound changes just after a first and heavy snow. Promise yourself that you will find out its texture and hum.)
be well; be loved,
k.
P.S. I read the oddest reference to disability that I think I have ever read thus far. An academic starts out a sentence with "The most extreme disability, death itself, (blah blah blah)". I don't think I've ever heard death be referenced as a type of disability. As if one would see a dead body and think "Wow. That person has a very extreme disability."
(image: Andre Paul Pinces via untrustyou tumblr)
