The Last Days of Summer

Things are trucking on here, and it’s hard to believe we’re already at the end of August. It feels like from the beginning of all this in early March to now has been a twilight zone and here we are bypassing all of the summer heat and sunshine right into the school year again, although here in Toronto, school has been delayed an extra week, until mid-September. Another twilight zone sort of thing.

In the midst of the pervasive and humming anxiety of making decisions for our children that may or may not be the right ones, of running a stationery shop in a pandemic and in this era in general, we are celebrating the tiny things. Audiobooks while hanging laundry, Caleb writing a story about a family of squirrels from Narnia dressing up like humans and moving to England, like the hyenas from The Bolds. All the different worlds swimming together in a stew. Crispy dumplings from the cast iron pan, the kids flinging peanuts around the backyard to try attract more squirrels, our Chinese neighbour trying to explain to them in Chinese that the squirrels are eating all of her squash. Ordering more board books for Naomi, trying to hold onto the last dredges of toddlerhood, as she goes off to preschool, this independent and wild child off to blossom without me hovering over her. Sending letters out into the world, addressed to unsuspecting victims. Suspiciously low library fine amounts that I’m not looking any deeper into. Forcing the cat to acknowledge my existence in his life by bothering him while he’s sleeping.

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Currently reading: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Current shop task: organizing and re-organizing the 14 stock items leftover in the studio shop for display, as we prepare for some curbside pick ups here.
Currently waiting for: my sewing machine to come back from the repair shop.
Currently writing with: Pilot Custom 74s, a TWSBI, several Lamy safaris strewn about the house.
Currently strategy for getting through life: a package of Reese’s pieces in my backpack that I snack on intermittently throughout the day, and then mumbling nothing to my children when they ask what I’m eating, those nosy scavengers.