As I write this missive a storm rumbles its way just south of us throwing off heat as it drops the barometric pressure on someone else’s small town leaving us, well, humid to beat to band and hot. Too hot to hang about outside and too hot to pick blueberries, which I was hoping to do today. No dice. Instead I went to the air-conditioned gymnasium (a Greek word, btw…), walked my 4.5 miles, burned off almost 800 calories and came home. I showered off the sweat and began to sweat again. So be it.
I have been noodling around with Ralph Waldo Emerson lately. I purchased a book at Oblong Books in Millerton by Richard Grossman titled ‘A Year With Emerson’ and I have been enjoying the quotes he has chosen. In some cases he adds a small editorial note to give the quote a sense of context and I find this book to be a fine addition to my other daily readings. Today was about Emerson’s love of ‘strolling’ and getting lost in nature. He wrote,
“I deliberately shut up my books in a cloudy July noon, put on my old clothes and old hat and slink away to the whortleberry bushes and slip with the greatest satisfaction into a little cowpath where I am sure I can defy observation. This point gained, I solace myself for hours picking blueberries and other trash of the woods, far from fame, behind the birch-trees. I remember them in winter, I expect them in spring. I do not know a creature that I think has the same humor, or would think it respectable.”
Emerson’s love for the peripatetic, or the thoughtful walk, reminds me that when I am on the treadmill, defying the heat and humidity on this sultry July day, I must look a bit crazy to the gods. So be it. I ponder empty thoughts, count the miles ticking away and check my pulse once in a while. I am thinking of Greece today, having had a nice email from a friend in Scotland who will be there in August for a holiday. I am returning there in less than two weeks and I am looking forward to the heat of that place, albeit without much of the humidity. But today, unlike Ralph, I picked no blueberries.
I have updated the website of ‘PAGE Literary and Arts Journal’ and it looks pretty good. It is simpler and easier to navigate and some of the new changes clarify our submission policies and history. I have been given marks of approval from the other editors so that makes me happy as well. I hope we go to print soon!
Cooking outdoors has been a common dinner event here in Ancramdale as of late. If we are going to use heat for cooking we might as well leave it outside. The pictures tell the story. Damn, it is hot. My fingers are sticking to the keyboard…
JDCM
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