Newsletter: August Is the New September

Picking up where I left off in my July newsletter, with a word about the summer, the season still seems brief this year. I hope you're enjoying every minute of what remains! As I'm drafting this newsletter, it's one of those lazy August days when the sun shines, the wind moves the trees, and goldenrod is in full bloom in the field. And even though it seems so wrong, August is now Back to School month.

One of my favorite back-to-grade-school memories is of my schoolmates and me, in corduroy jackets, walking through fallen leaves, from Sayre School to the Public Library in Gratz Park, to choose our books for the week. Another memory surfaces - my metal lunchbox with a deliciously soggy lettuce, tomato and mayo sandwich on white bread. I did wash my hands before lunch, first to get rid of the germs that my mother insisted were on the books, and then afterward, to get rid of the mayo so I could return to the books.

Now, I'm not waiting for Labor Day either -- August is as good a time as any for new ideas and planning. I have V. S. Naipaul's The Enigma of Arriving on order, arriving soon. As an antidote to the current political confusion, I'm re-reading An Open Heart, by the Dalai Lama, and a couple of other books on meditation. I'm starting to sift through notes and papers for new artist's books that will appear sometime next year. And as you read on, you will find some good news about my 2017 artist's book, Is There Something We Can Do.

Borrowing lines from that book, "The farmer channels water to his land, the fletcher whittles his arrows, the carpenter turns his wood." There is indeed something each of us can do.