I am writing to you from the chilled air of my office as our air conditioning unit hums away across the hall and out the window of my husbands office. I swear I can hear it but that may just be because I feel acutely aware of everything that is making the big heat more bearable.
We’ve reached the point where there’s no turning back. Summer is very much here and it’s hard to do much of anything. Every night when we arrive at dinnertime we contemplate turning on the oven and ultimately decide against it. Most of the food we’re putting in our bodies is cooked on a grill, pulled cold from the fridge, eaten raw or picked up from some place delicious as we’re going to and from our activities when we do leave our house. A few days ago, after leaving a friends home who coincidentally had cooked us breakfast (we lingered a good while after), we stopped for lunch at a Publix to get a Pub Sub (a cold italian, duh!) and while we were in line to get our delicatessen rations, we laid eyes on the cold case sushi. Both things sounded cold and delicious and it was 99 degrees outside. Who were we to argue with what the heart wanted? We grabbed chopsticks, and ate our cold sushi in our air conditioned car, and took our subs home for dinner and lunch the next day, thwarting use of any kitchen for a few meals longer.
I’ve kept up my habit of swimming, securing a second pool to frequent that’s closer to my house. I stretch and jog in the water, and then I tread for a while. Generally I’m swimming at the YMCA pool, which I love dearly in all it’s eccentricities, it’s screaming children and it’s turbulent splashing. The pool closer to my home is completely empty in the morning. As I walked out the door I thought to grab my old over the ear headphones. I thought this would be a quick in-and-out-in-an-hour pool visit, but I was wrong. The quiet and the lack of children jumping and splashing everything within a 5 foot radius made it a safe enough environment to wear my headphones. I jogged for over an hour, and stretched and read my book for another hour.
I finished The Wall by Marlen Haushofer in the pool. This book has been on my list since I read and fell in love with I Who Have Never Known Men. I think I saw the two compared somewhere on BookTok and added it to a growing list of books I want to read.
I’m in a good rhythm with reading and swimming and I am hopeful that it will do some good at extinguishing the intense anxiety that’s buzzing around inside my chest. It’s a little bit of everything that’s caused it. The news, the heat, getting older, and recovering from a knee injury are all to blame. Other things too that I’m probably forgetting. At least once a day I find myself sitting in front of a computer screen, trying to write, and just deciding that I’d rather read, or swim, or both. Instead of pushing back against it and forcing myself to be productive, I’m trying to give in more.
Every day I ask myself if there’s anything that will make me feel 1% lighter, 1% less buzz-filled.
And every day I find something to try.
Today it was swimming in a pool at 7AM listening to a lot of Taylor Swift. And then going to restock my decaf coffee for home (something that felt like a real accomplishment after reading The Wall).
Next I’m going to press send and get this into your inbox, and tab over to read this essay by Octavia E. Butler.
After that, maybe I’ll go walk around the book store for an hour or so.
Maybe I’ll finally turn on the oven.
I don’t know what it will be later today, or tomorrow, but I’m sure I’ll find something.
Recent Reads
All these are rated and reviewed on Goodreads, but I loved Annihilation so much I thought it deserved special treatment in PiaN! If you want to follow me on Goodreads you can do that here!
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Change is an inevitable, inescapable, ever present force and in the VanderMeer created world of Annihilation change has a pulse. At no point could I see an ending which is to say this wasn’t predictable in any way for me. The story is smart, gripping, intense and eerie.
It causes you to question reality and what any of us can know beyond our own perceptions and drawn conclusions. It gives you no choice but to see yourself in the characters and in Area X. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, despite having a nightmare about being stuck motionless, in a hallucination. I wonder where my consciousness borrowed that from?
Very much would recommend this one.
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