ErikaMoen
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What if I wasted it?
🕑 Added 2024-08-30 04:42:41 +0000 UTCHey so we’re like at the end of August. My friend’s twins started school this week (Not even September! I think it should be illegal to have school start before September) and I’m like lowkey panicking because the summer is almost over and I’m scared I haven’t Made The Most of these sweet hot months before the rain and the gray starts up again. I didn’t go on trips (the few we had planned were canceled due to forest fire smoke) and I didn’t ride my bike nearly as much as I had imagined I would and I didn’t utilize every square inch of my garden for maximum efficiency… Oh! And, for god only knows how many years in a row, I failed to even start building a retaining wall in the front yard or demolishing our rotten back deck. Literally, it’s not safe to stand on.
I am so mono-focused on my failures. Even posting this drawing of garlic, I just spent like half an hour trying different ways of editing it in Photoshop so that the grainy-ness and dirty-ness of the paper would look better, but everything I did just made things look worse somehow, so you know what? Here it is, in all its grainy, dirty glory. Another thing I failed at except I did still managed to share my drawing at all and isn't that kind of a success? So the artwork could look better with a clean scan or better editing, but it's up. I planted my first garlic and I harvested it and I drew my garlic and I shared it with you, here in my little corner of the internet, with people who generally like the kind of stuff I make, even though it's rarely perfect. Success.
This summer I (with help from friends) picked 58.25 lbs of raspberries from my backyard. I ate sugar snap peas straight off the vine and plums warm from the sun. I taught my friend's ten-year-old daughter and her friend how to weave lavender wands. I grew and ate a perfect cabbage head. I beat some slugs to my strawberries.
I bumped into one of my first roommates on a random river dock. We lived together in a crumbling apartment which I loved in the mid 00s. We were in our 20s and now we're in our 40s. He's married and divorced and my heart was so, so happy to see him again, after all these years.
I held a newborn in my arms in the hospital, not even a day old. I lifted his four-year-old sister up to reach the top of the monkey bars at the park. I floated on the river with my husband and our dear friend. I hosted an author both at her public talk and as a guest in my home. I made paper flowers with my sewing group to brighten up our absent friend's hospital room while she had to stay there for an extended time. I saw my close friend and his family for the first time since they left in a panic for Canada at the height of Covid, when our city was literally suffocating in forest fire smoke. I grew poppies. I grew a boatload of poppies.
There's more. I'm remembering more. More old friends I saw again, more recent friends I made brand new, more harvests from my yard, more art I made, more books I listened to, more classes I took, more, more more.
Of course I didn't waste the summer.
I failed to do a lot of the things I had intended to, but you know what? I had a good summer.
I had a good summer.
Comments
Brendan J
This was a really good reminder to me to be grateful for the beauty of passing time. Thank you Erika!
Tay
Oh, I love this <3 I've been feeling pretty similarly about this summer. So many ideas/plans I had that I never got to, and then boom, September is almost here...
The Ferret
I'm so glad.
allanfranta
Also, my garden is all about NEXT year! Poppies you say?
allanfranta
I make self-deprecating comments to myself about whatever I do, it's not that they aren't perfect so much as I did those things.
Karine Charlebois
Thank you for this perspective. I have been feeling the same way about not getting to do all the summer things that were planned and I always dread the end of summer. Doesn't help that we had a bunch of unexpected bad things happen as well, but this is a reminder for me to take the wins and appreciate the moments. And... it's now Concord Jam time and my grape vines have gone absolutely bonkers. Summer is not yet over.
Margreet de Heer
Procrastinating is also the prerogative of summer! And an essential part of the creative process, imho. (Not to say you've been procrastinating. You did a lot! And I love how much you share about your life and work. Connections!)
Katie
must confess I've tried adding fake paper graininess to art photos before 🫣 the empty white space feels so bland and shallow sometimes. love your garlic art and it sounds like a very full summer!
Deniz Bevan
Love this post because I go through the same mental hoop! 🤗
Dirk Bergstrom
Today I'm really struggling with feeling like nothing's getting done. I know that's not entirely true, but I really feel this whole post and it's wild ride from nothing to something.
BT
Your drawings make me so happy
