August 20-24, 2018
Remember last year when, for a moment, we took a break from earthly concerns and looked up at the sky? Helen returns to her eclipse post from last year, written from the backseat of a car during the I-95 traffic jam. The sun’s last rays shone bright, then winked out, and there it was, just like in the photos—a dark circle with a light ring around it, a dark gray sky. Face turned up, mouth hanging open, I made ecstatic, non-word sounds as tears streamed from the outside corners of both eyes. The other 30 or so people in the park sounded just as excited.
Rebecca explains planets in retrograde over brunch. I know astrology is a lark, as my mom might say. And yet for some reason, I want to know all this detail. . . I think it’s fine to seek meaning among the stars. Actually, I’ll just come out and say it: I think it’s totally appropriate.
On a reporting trip to Cambodia, Michelle saw an image of a woman that stuck with her. She was beautiful, with clear eyes, a proud posture and a stylish haircut. But even more striking than her beauty was the way she’d raised one eyebrow in what looked like defiance, and set her mouth in determination instead of fear. She must have known her fate — only seven people are thought to have survived Tuol Sleng — and she’d chosen to meet it with this face.
The summer heat is getting to Craig, so he reduxed a post from a deep winter night. It turned out to be one of the worst nights I have ever experienced, frigid and uncomfortable. Any colder and I’d have lost digits. I was clearly the dumb Holocene guy trying out the Ice Age.
Guest Jill Adams went to Scotland this summer. It rocked. (It’s Friday and I’ve devolved into weak geology puns. Quick, cleanse your palate with something from Jill.) Picture me, standing atop a shelf of rock. It’s easy to imagine how that structure was lifted at an angle from deeper down in the Earth. The striations on the rock sides match the angle of the lift. I’m looking westward, with my right arm bent to match the angle, low toward the sea, high towards the land. I move my left arm to take an opposing angle and my eyes scan the shoreline for a match.
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Photo of a rock cairn on Arran Beach by Jill U. Adams