A Walk to Say Goodbye to the Summer

These sunny days in between the rain are so beautiful. I wish they could last longer.
(Arachnophobes be warned. There’s a couple of them ahead.)

Snowberries with residual raindrops

Orb weaver spider hiding near her web

Harvestman, also called a daddy long legs. They look like spiders, but they’re not. They don’t even have fangs and are beneficial in the garden.

Hawthorn branch with the lake in the background

Empress tree, I think. The pointy fruits are neat.

Ivy growing up a rough tree trunk

The Thrill

Halloween is theoretically a spooky time, but let’s be real, it’s all just fun. People enjoy the little thrills, but mostly it’s an excuse to be creative and silly. Those thrills aren’t even really fear, they’re the excitement of being allowed to look at and celebrate things that are still slightly taboo. We’re not supposed to talk about death too lightly, except right now, when we can hang human skeletons and cute little ghosts from our trees. They’re even selling adorable little fake dog and lizard skeletons in every shop, although most of the time people might think it’s a little weird that I keep real ones in my office.

The most exciting things in life are often the things that have the capacity to be a little scary. That’s why we like roller-coasters, painfully spicy food, kinky sex, and sharing our artistic work in spite of the fairly legitimate terror of rejection and/or mockery. The people who seem to enjoy themselves the most fully are the ones who manage to do what they do in spite of the fear, even learning to embrace the fear, rather than because they had no fear to start with. It’s no fun without the thrill, or maybe there’s just less of a sense of triumph if we didn’t have to push through some discomfort to get to the goal.

Writing days this past week: 3