I love June, not because it’s my birthday month, but because it signals the start of summer and everything that I love the most takes place in summer: the longest daylight hours, the blooming of colorful flowers like dahlias and gladiolas, the best of produce. And the sun! After having lived in both Southern California and the Central Coast, I’m aware of June gloom and the listless feelings it can evoke when every hour of the day looks the same thanks to the thick marine layer overhead. But from where I’m sitting in my office now, I see open blue sky and for that I am grateful.
Read and Reading
All Fours by Miranda July
After watching and loving Miranda July’s Kajillionaire, a quirky crime comedy-drama with a protagonist named Old Dolio (yes, that’s the young woman’s real name), I knew I had to read July’s newest novel, All Fours. It’s different, and know going in that it’s extremely raw, honest, and may be too much for some. If you can go in with a very open mind, then I think it’s worth your time to read this.
Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne
I’ve always been interested in people who fall outside the box of what society considers normal, and that’s more so when you can make the case that these people are or could be dangerous. Gagne challenges these notions and she opens up about her diagnosis as a sociopath and how this shifts her understanding of herself. Some of the scenes depicted here were a lot to handle, and I’ll admit I skipped most of a chapter that talked about her pet ferret (rarely do animal stories end well and I’d like to make the case to leave them out of any story ever written again, ok?). That said, this is another one that I think is worth your time.
Brief Flashings in a Phenomenal World by Katie Arnold
For a runner and a writer, I may be in the small camp that hasn’t read Arnold’s first book, Running Home. Maybe because I spend enough time running, I don’t often feel the urge to read more about running when I’m choosing to pick up a book. Luckily, Brief Flashings isn’t so much about running as it is about how Arnold navigated an injury that took running away, and how meditation and Zen teachings played a central role in her healing. Arnold’s writing is gorgeous, and a few lines felt like I was indulging in something delectable. To me, good writing often feels like enjoying a favorite food, and this one was a small feast.
Books on my to read list:
This Ordinary Stardust: A Scientist’s Path from Grief to Wonder by Alan Townsend
Bear: A Novel by Julia Phillips
The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier
Gardening
After some recent shifts in our summer plans, we pivoted hard into gardening. Over two days, we purchased a variety of troughs from Farm Supply, bought a few new fruit trees, and planted a garden. We also migrated our blueberry plant (who has traveled from Washington to Arizona to California with us) that had been neglected at the front of the house to our side deck and now it feels like we have a permaculture dream, all within the confines of a suburban neighborhood.
As a kid, I didn’t understand why we couldn’t plant more fruits and vegetables in our front yard and rip out the grass. Now as an adult, it doesn’t have to make sense because we can just do it—growing up is great! Here’s a list of what’s in our garden now:
pineapple guava
strawberry guava
pink-fleshed guava
lemon
lime
variegated lemon
elderberry (blue, mexican)
black mulberry
pakistan mulberry
blueberry
lavender
rosemary
peppers (red, yellow, purple)
kale (russian, dino, purple)
cilantro
parlsey
dandelion
mustard greens
goji berry
raspberry
hardy kiwi
pomegranate
haas avocado
fennel
tomato (golden pear, cherry)
dill
french strawberries
romaine lettuce
yellow beans
persian cucumbers
zucchini
summer squash
lemon balm
grape (an unknown heirloom variety, so we were told, left from the last people who lived here)
carrots
bay leaf
The first Pakistan mulberry. I was 28 years old when I first learned about mulberries and I am now making up for lost time.
I hope it encourages you to reconsider that boxwood you’re about to put in as a hedge, and swap it out for a pomegranate instead. We live on less than half an acre, and most of this is grown in containers on our side deck, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t have acres of land to play with.
What I’m Thinking About
This morning, while on a run with Nick, I watched a man speed by on a golf cart. This wasn’t on a road, but what’s known as the Bob Jones trail, a 2.5 mile paved path that leads to the quaint town of Avila Beach. The final mile of the Bob Jones trail crosses a golf course, and there are runners and walkers and cyclists and kids and dogs that also use this path, and there are squirrels, lots of squirrels, that burrow on both sides. Shortly after the golf cart sped past us, a group of squirrels ran out, startled by the noise. The man kept going, and more were coming, and the man didn’t slow down, and he hit one of the smallest ones. As soon as the man hit the squirrel, the squirrel started flailing, blood rushing out of its mouth, but the man just kept going. Nick pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around the squirrel, hoping to assess the damage and see if we might be able to get it to the wildlife rehab facility before it succumbed to its injuries. As we did this, a woman who had also seen the event unfold, said “yikes!” as she passed us, and kept walking. The squirrel passed in Nick’s arms.
A few miles later, we saw the man again, still speeding around on a busy path. We flagged him down. We told him he’d hit a squirrel and to please slow down. “It’s fine,” he said. “There are millions of them.”
Nick and I were furious, and we vented to each other about how sad it is that so many animals are killed in SLO alone because of people who drive too fast. Accidents happen, animals dart out of bushes, but the number of people who stop to check on the animal, to see if it’s suffering, is dismal.
When Nick and I brought in a skunk that had been hit by a car a few months ago (and yes, our car smelled like skunk for 6 weeks, even after it had been professionally detailed), I was told by several people that we had such big hearts for doing that. It’s a nice compliment, but the sentiment only made me feel isolated and confused. Barring safety concerns around rescuing animals from busy roads (never jeopardize your own safety, please), I don’t think bringing an animal into a wildlife rehab center is a big gesture. To me, it’s a part of human decency—having an awareness that other living beings can suffer. If you have the chance to help, why wouldn’t you? Why not take a few minutes out of your day to help someone/something that needs it?
In the last few months, I’ve been confronted with this hopelessness often. My heart hurts every time I drive past another dead opossum, another dead barn owl, another dead fawn on roads that aren’t supposed to be driven faster than 30 or 40mph.
I think surrounding myself with so much life—our animals, our garden—is an antidote to the sadness I feel at times. I can’t stop people from driving recklessly, or not caring to help an animal they mistakenly hit, but I can have gratitude for the animals who are okay: Buddy the crow, who caws from the willow tree every morning at 6am, our senile rat who licks up a spoonful of yogurt each night, the blueberry bush that has survived thousands of miles of car travel and extreme temperature swings. The more I focus on what I can do, the more bearable the rest can be.
Summer Races
After longer distances this fall, I’m opting for shorter and faster races this summer. I imagine I may add to this list if training goes well and we can fit in the travel, but here’s what the next few months currently look like:
Broken Arrow VK and 23K, Lake Tahoe, CA
*possibly* NACAC Mountain and Trail Running Championships, Villa del Carbon, Mexico
Squamish 50K, Squamish, BC
Pikes Peak Ascent, Manitou Springs, CO
Recommended Substack Posts
I’ve been writing on Substack since last September, but I’ve admittedly not spent a lot of time on the platform. I’m still learning about new people to follow and new posts to read, but here are a few that I’ve recently loved:
Roundup by Nicolas Delon of Running Ideas
I just learned about Nicolas’ Substack and am immensely enjoying his roundup of links to everything from effective altruism to overoptimization. I’d like to read/watch/listen to most everything on this list at some point.
On How We Spend Our Days by Melanie Lan of Constellations
I met Melanie when I was student at Fairhaven College, an interdisciplinary college within Western Washington University. For nearly three years I took classes on everything from Biodiversity to the History of Punctuation Marks to Writing the Five Senses. I also took several drawing classes, and in each of them I’d see Melanie’s beautiful, nature-themed art on the walls and admire it. Melanie now teaches watercolor painting classes (I highly recommend you sign up for one! I did and loved it) and she started a Substack, too. Check it out.
The Weekly Wind Down by Kristen Schindler
I love diving into Kristen’s weekly round up and she’s recently been writing more about mental performance. Stick around if you want to learn skills you can take to your own performance goals, whether those are running-related or not.
What I Think About When I Think About Writing by Carrot Quinn of Sunsets Are the Only Given
I have a penchant for reading stories about the PCT. I don’t really know why. I don’t want to thru-hike it and I don’t really like backpacking (I’m a minimalist, what can I say?). But I can happily immerse myself in reading about someone else’s journey and I tore through Carrot Quinn’s 2015 book, Thru Hiking Will Break Your Heart. Their writing is fresh and real and reading their Substack feels like an extension of their novel, which not everyone can pull off. Definitely subscribe if you love nature, backpacking, and/or unique voices.
Wishing you a sun-filled weekend!
Thanks for the shout-out, I like it here a lot too!
We are too out of touch with nature… it’s so tragic. On a brighter note I’ll see you at pikes peak ascent! It’s such a cool race.