The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver

I had this poem memorized in college.  I read it for the first time in a course called 'Campus Ecology' and taped it into all of my notebooks and journals.  The course was taught by a one of my favorite professors who let us read David Orr and Wendell Berry and Annie Dillard and just truckloads of Mary Oliver. 

We held class on the green lawn outside Holland Hall-- our limestone castle of a history department-- and we wrote letters to our congressmen about sustainability, green fuels, and wind turbines.  Oliver's The Summer Day became our anthem.  As Joan Didion once so gracious offered-- Was anyone ever so young?

I still think about the poem sometimes, usually in July when the heat seems never-ending and I start dreaming of wool skirts and black tights.  Summer isn't my favorite season.

Rereading it again this year, I can't help but grimace at not only Oliver's overwrought romanticism but also at the girl who once worshiped it.  And yet as Didion also once said (Didion again, I know...) “I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”

So true, Joanie.  So true.


The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

The Riviera Maya

Let's go back.

New York in Fog

New York was crazy this morning! Upon seeing the thick fog outside my apartment door before my morning run, I begrudgingly hauled myself back up the steep three stories of steps to grab my camera and then snapped these unedited photos of a completely blocked Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn Bridge Park. (Note: THIS is what the park usually looks like.) Spooky!

View of the Brooklyn Bridge

What you see in the distance should be lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.

See!? Spooky graveyard.

This spot is normally one of the best views of Lower Manhattan, with the Brooklyn Bridge just to the right.

The Brooklyn Bridge finally emerging around 8am.

Brooklyn Bridge from South Ferry Park. (South Ferry Park?)

Manhattan Bridge

And THEN, after I was all excited about my spooky run, I ran into something REALLY spooky......

A zombie on a movie set. For real.
The end.

Miami, part I

One week ago today I was laying on this beach in Miami covered in salt and sand, giddy over this cloud formation. Have you ever seen a more perfect cloud? I kept thinking that any second cherubs would burst through in song. Shortly after, I would walk to the Raleigh hotel, order a peach daiquiri, and discuss the evening ahead, happy as a clam.

Let's go back, wanna? New York is exhausting me this week. Woof.

Penny and Oscar

I have so much to tell you about. Project Nim, and Race to Nowhere, and some crazy art as PS1 and Patti Smith's book that I cannot put down. I have wanted to write about Movies with a View and about The Sun Also Rises and about Midnight in Paris and this really fantastic restaurant that recently opened in my neighborhood called Brucie. But I'm BUSY these days and it's just so very hot. So here are some pictures of cats! Can you tell which cat is sweet and which cat is grumpy? That's all.

Fire Island

We took a little 'day trip' to Fire Island on Saturday.

Have you been? I like it there.

The beaches are shockingly not crowded.

The food is superb.

The walking is delightful.

And although we sadly missed Frat-urday...


...we did catch a touching little garden ceremony instead.




We all meant to leave that night, we really did. It was a Sunday after all.

But there was an outdoor pool! and an empty beach! and a hot tub and a drag show and a seafood hut and a sleeping bunk!

And so much more to do and see.

So instead of catching the Sunday night ferry, we decided to stay and discover what Fire Island looks like at 6:10 on a Monday morning.

Let's go back soon.

Portland V: Books I Found at Powell's

You all told me that I would love Powell's books, but honestly I had no idea. I live in New York City where I frequent bookstores almost daily and was skeptical that a used bookstore in Portland would effect me any more than it's New York couterparts. My favorite bookstore is McNally Jackson-- just two blocks away from my office-- but I also spend a lot of time in Housing Works, or I'll trot up to The Strand, and then there is BookCourt, in my neighborhood. (I like BookCourt, but sometimes I wish they were friendlier.) You know where they ARE friendly!? Greenlight.

But Powell's is the bookstore to beat all bookstores. It's humungo and it's organized by color and it's exhaustive in it's inventory. I loved everything about it and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.

These are some of the books that I found:

First off, please ignore my chipped manicure. I moved and unpacked like 35 boxes the day before. The nail polish, however, does match this pretty Maugham cover. Have you read it? I've only read one of his-- For Cakes and Ale-- and I loved it.

Anais Nin makes me feel a little crazy. I'm always tempted to buy this one, but in the end after flipping through a few chapters I know it wouldn't be good for me or for anyone around me. Sorry, Ninny!


I almost bought this one for the cover alone but then I read a few sample pages and noted the blatant racist language. Ernest! Come on.

This book is randomly super expensive. It's like $38 for a normal sized book. I always look for it anyway, hoping to find a cheap used version as I don't really cook that much anyway. No dice.

Speaking of Spain! Cute cover, no?

This one took forever to find. It was in the 'oversized' section of the City and Urban Planning Section in the Pearl Room (although I was initially told Rose.) Hilary read aloud from it at the beach one day, peaking my interest, but she had the slightly smaller paperback. This one was a hard cover and 1200 pages and it was just too heavy.

See? Oversized.


Lots of Hemingway.


Demain! One of the books that affected me most in High School. It's like the grownup's Giver. Have you read it?


The aforementioned Cakes and Ale with the best opening sentence ever.



I saw a play about this in the Village this winter.


Katherine Hepburn later starred in the movie version of this novel. I found it in the Westerns.


But Lonesome Dove was found in the literary section. Go figure! (Maybe because it won a Pulizer? Still the quintessential Western novel, amiright?)


Are you still reading this post? Is it boring? Isn't this a cute cookbook cover?


I remember my Grandpa Red reading this book in his camper. It was always in this basket by the passenger's seat.


So big! I was transfixed by the idea as a child that anyone could read this much.


Our Editor wrote this!

City Life is a really interesting compilation of essays that I found by the Moses book about 'every major city in America.'


But over half of it was about New York. HA.

One of the best things about used books is that someone else owned it before you did. Willy got that Basque Cookbook as a birthday gift one year from someone named Rose.

The end.