Summertime

Summertime, and the living is easy.

Mostly easy. I walk a lot. Down to my office and back. Down to old man basketball at the Field House and back. Down to the coffee shop and back.

I drink coffee. I sit at my computer and write. I play video games.

I don’t know. I’m smack dab in the middle of July as I write this. July 16th.

The dog days of easy living.

***

Being alive is not easy.

And yet I’m having an easy time as of late. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy playing basketball. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy walking around Iowa City. I put headphones on. Cue up some music. The Decembrists. Black Sabbath. Brian Eno. M. Ward. Ella Fitzgerald. I’ve got eclectic tastes. And then I walk through the streets of Iowa City. Lost in a song. Lost in prayer. Lost in the universe. Sweating through my shirt.

I’ve been playing my friend’s guitar this summer. I might never give it back. Or I might go to a guitar store and buy a new guitar for the first time in my life. Anything could happen.

I’ve been learning songs. Eyes by the Rogue Wave. 17th Street Treatment Center by John K. Samson. Anything Could Happen by the Clean. I still don’t love my singing voice, but I don’t really care anymore. I like playing guitar. I like singing. I’m going to do more of that. Playing guitar and singing make being alive a little easier.

***

Writing makes being alive a little easier.

Short little blogs. Poems. Stories about teaching and learning. I wrote down my pedagogic creed for a book I’m working on with my friend Erin. Inspired by Dewey’s pedagogic creed. I’m really proud of the chapter I’ve been working on. Hopefully, I can share that in the coming months (or years) when that book gets published. It takes time for books to come together. And sometimes they never do.

Writing creates a little space to breath. To think. To dream. To transform. All of these things are important things, I think, in this life that isn’t very easy. I think transformation makes space for us to be in better relationship with this difficult life, but what do I know?

I do know that these are the dog days of summer. And I don’t know what the phrase the dog days of summer really means. Do you? I’m not going to Google the phrase dog days of summer right now. Google interrupts my writing. AI too. I never touch the stuff. I’d rather my own messy words on the page than anything that Grok can come up with.

The cat fish are jumping. The cotton is high. Spread your wings, and take to the sky.

Don’t mind if I do.