Dear Readers,
I hope with all my heart that all of you have been safe and sound through these unsettling times. When I sent my last newsletter on Memorial Day, the unrest and upset of the past two weeks wasn't even on the horizon. Goes to show, yet again, that we cannot predict the future, and we have to do our very best every day we have on this earth.
All I long for these days is peace. Peace in my house, peace in my city, peace in the world. Yet I know how hard peace is to attain and maintain, even in my fairly functional family. A day can be humming along and all of a sudden, someone says something, or does something someone else gets upset about, and peace goes out the window.
Nevertheless, I've managed to keep my focus on dealing with the strife that's actually mine to deal with, and steering clear of that which isn't. Otherwise I simply can't keep my anxiety under control and that remains one of my top priorities. I don't want to go back to that awful dread.
So what helps?
Steering clear of the news. I keep saying that, don't I? But it's just been so instrumental in helping me stay productive and sane. On the evening of my birthday, when I came into the house after I had tended our camp fire and star gazed with my
daughter, my husband had the TV blarring coverage of the church burning in Washington, D.C. I fled to my bedroom and wrote a long WhatsApp message to a friend. Call that sticking your head in the sand if you want, but I just wanted the lovely day I'd had end on a pleasant note and not be marred by the news.
That's me in 1981.
Trips down memory lane (via photos, for example). They began on my birthday when my brother gifted me a little album of family photos from the random year of 1981. He's slowly been digitizing our dad's treasure trove of slides. He sent it to my sister and me just before we all got on a video call. As you can imagine, we laughed our
heads off at some of the shots such as the one above. Don't ask why I have what looks like a pajama top on my head. I have no idea!
I hadn't been there since 2006, see pic below.
Trips down memory lane in actual physical places. My daughter and I went for our first hiking excursion yesterday. We wanted to do a trail at the Indiana Dunes that leads to the sandy beach along Lake Michigan. Alas, parking lots were full. Instead, we ended up hiking in the area where we used to go for the Maple Syrup Festival in the winter when my kids were small. I really felt like I was retracing my own steps! It was oddly reassuring to experience a place I knew well in one season (winter) in another (summer).
When we came home I dug around my photo archives and found the images of exactly how I had remembered first seeing that forlorn cemetery in the middle of the woods: During a snow shower on a bitterly cold day!
Making comfort food of the past. When I was a kid, my birthday meant my mom made Erdbeerkuchen, i.e. German-style strawberry shortcake, because my birthday falls at the end of May, when strawberry season usually begins. So for this birthday in quarantine, I asked my baking-savvy daughter to make it, and it turned out great! I honestly don't
know when I last had this but I can tell you it tasted heavenly this time.
The recipe for Erdbeerkuchen is on my blog as it was too long for this newsletter. It features step-by-step pictures, courtesy of my daughter, who captures all her baking adventures in Snapchat stories. And
do let me know if you attempt this! Or perhaps you're already familiar with this type of cake?
Other than that, for me this summer promises to be one of creativity. I've always dreamed of spending a summer out here at our country home and now it's happening. We're not going back to the city anytime soon. My day job for my kids' former school wraps up this week, and since summer camps are cancelled, I'll be free until school hopefully begins in the fall. Perhaps something like a
DIY writing retreat is in the offing? Who knows, I'm cautious but hopeful.
My younger son and I have been taking a writing course together that I can highly recommend: How to Write a Bestseller. It's offered by the Self
Publishing Formula, and I can truly recommend any of their classes. They are so professional and instructive. Everything I know about self-publishing I learned from them, and my second book would not have seen the light of day without their excellent Self-Publishing 101 course. Even though I don't think I'll ever write genre fiction, I am learning so much from this class on how to set up a story so it will be appealing to readers. My son is several chapters into writing a
sci-fi spy thriller, and it's been amazing to witness his mind and imagination at work.
I'll report back soon on how it's going with keeping the peace, writing the books and traveling down memory lanes.
Be well and feel free to write back! I love hearing how you all are faring.
Greetings,
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