When it isn’t summer, I always think of it as a magical time, but can’t always recall why. Sure, the weather is better, but does that really lend so much to my experiences? Last month we moved back to Seattle after 2 years away. It’s bliss. This is some of why. Here’s what I did each day in June, when I wasn’t working.
- Lunch at Senso Unico w/ my daughter while wife shopped downtown.
- My first day getting into the gym at SPU.
- Finished my children’s book.
- I don’t know what I did this day because I forgot to write it down.
- Pancake breakfast at Swedish Cultural Center. This is kind-of a Seattle tradition and something I’d always wanted to try.
- Family evening walk in Mrytle Edwards Park along Elliot Bay.
- Morning walk with wife on the beach at Golden Gardens. A heard of sea otters barking like mad!
- Normal day: worked then grilled outside in evening.
- Poetry Reading at Phinney Books, featuring Richard Kenney, and where I was tons of friends. Beers with Fowler before.
- Quiet evening at home.
- Meet Jeremiah at Third Place Books at the top of Lake Washington. (I buy Iphegenia at Aulis trans. Merwin)
- Art opening for my friend Hopkins, spent the day meeting people and having hors d’ouevres at Zingaro. Wife attends Pacific Northwest Ballet season finale in evening.
- Recovery day
- Visit to Frye Art Gallery
- Tennis in the morning
- Lunch with my friend Andrew, then family evening walk from Queen Anne to Fremont, over the bridge at sunset. Drinks at Red Door.
- Surprise concert by The Helio Sequence, a favorite, right across the canal. We walk to it in our pajamas and dance like children.
- Wife attends Whim W’him show at Cornish Playhouse
- Day in Capital Hill: Top Pot doughnuts, Elliot Bay Books, then CD store. (I buy MWS Project)
- Worked and grilled in eve.
- I teach evening class at Northwest University.
- Alain de Botton reading at Seattle Public Library. Drinks after at Good Bar in Pioneer Square, which is amazing.
- Taking it easy.
- Our friends the Foxes come for dinner.
- My first soccer game ever: go Sounders!
- Picnic lunch by Fremont canal, evening church meeting.
- Sunny day, reading Henry James on bench in front yard.
- I get good news regarding a publication.
- Men’s morning meeting; dinner al fresco.
- I write this, thinking what a blessed existence this is.
Next month, we’re hosting my friend El Che, going to the Olympic Peninsula with my brother’s family, and camping on the Lower Skokomish river with my father-in-law; wife is having a dance show at Bellevue Art Museum, and Shakespeare-in-the-Park begins, so things don’t show any sign of letting up.