Month: July 2020

Good Stuff: Mostly Bears Edition

On By JuliaIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

First, a note: Weekly Roundup is now called Good Stuff. Okay? Let’s get to it! Exclamation points!!!

I found some fun, random stuff to share with you lovely folks this week! Most of it is about bears, because bears are top-notch summer role models. One of my drafts for this week’s post about summer weirdness involved a whole tangent about how I’d rather be a bear than a human lady in July and August, and even though that bit got (rightfully) cut, I stand by my wish. I have twice seen a real live bear with my own eyes in the summertime: one bear was ambling along beside a sparkling high Sierra creek, sniffing at wildflowers without a care in the world, and the other bear was eating part of a pretty decent-looking pizza from an unsecured dumpster. Not too shabby!

Brown bear, don’t care. (Photo via Elizabeth Meyers)

The grizzly bear live cam at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park is going OFF right now, y’all. This is must-see TV Internet. Grizzlies filling their bellies like it’s their job (it basically is), salmon frantically leaping like their lives depend on it (they do), even a casual bald eagle or two—it’s all there. It’s a live-action nature show with no commercials, and a fine, fine virtual escape from…you know, everything. Don’t forget to check out the secondary cams too.

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Goodbye To All That

On By JuliaIn blogging, mindful living, personalLeave a comment
Grow, rest, repeat. (Photo: Dakota Roos)

I’m going to be honest with you friends– getting a blog post out in late July has been absolute torture for me. Not because I don’t like writing this blog, but because every summer I fall prey to a phenomenon I can only describe as “getting weird in the brain”.

Weird in the brain is hard to explain, but basically what happens is that my ability to focus or adhere to any kind of set schedule totally evaporates by mid July. What’s funny is that if I don’t write myself any kind of to-do list, oftentimes I’ll find myself busily doing all sorts of cool stuff, so clearly, it’s not that my summer brain hates activity. What it hates is being told what to do. If I ask it to go left, it takes off to the right. If I try to do something I enjoy, it tells me I don’t actually enjoy that thing anymore after all. There’s no distinct rhyme or reason to it, but it seems to impact my ability to do creative work most of all. I’ve chatted with other creatives about this, and it seems to be a fairly common thing, which is comforting. Still, we all handle it differently.

I get really down on myself when my brain gets summer-weird, telling myself all kinds of mean stuff about how I’m not measuring up, not doing the things I should/would/could be doing if I were a different, more focused person—that I’m failing at that most beloved American pastime, being productive. I can go for weeks in the summer, lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling, wracked with anxiety that I’m not doing life right, I’m not succeeding as a creative person. I’m not exaggerating. It is truly exhausting, not to mention a bad way to nurture the creative self. This is supposed to be fun, right?

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Excuse Me, What?

On By JuliaIn Uncategorized2 Comments

“Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news.”

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

I’ve been drafting a blog post over the last week or so, trying to say something about something, trying to get a handle on the bigness and weirdness of life at this moment. At first, I felt inspired by all the time I’ve been spending in the kitchen, so I wrote about how food and culture intersect, how food is a great way to dive into a culture that’s different from yours. Then I changed track completely, and started writing about the comfort of water, oceans and lakes and rivers, and how we’re currently learning about the healing power of nature in deep new ways. Still, none of it felt like an honest reflection of what I’m thinking about right now, because what I’m really thinking about right now is: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??

There are times when we can see the threads of life moving elegantly back and forth, making a pattern we can understand. Then, there are times like this month, when the threads are all tied in a giant, gnarly knot with old gum and bits of pet hair in it.

Like this, but way, WAY worse. (Photo via Manuel Sardo)
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