Saving my life: it’s finally summer edition.

Summer has (finally) arrived – hot and bright, and fuller than I had expected, at least so far. It’s the slow season at work, since classes are out for the summer, but there’s plenty to catch up on, and meanwhile I am squeezing in time with my people whenever I can.

Here’s what’s saving my life in this season:

• Mary Oliver’s wonderful collection Blue Iris, in which I have been lingering for weeks. Her flower poems – especially “Sunflowers,” “Poppies” and “Peonies” – have captivated me, and “A Blessing” chokes me up every time.
• Yoga, whenever and however I can squeeze it in. I particularly love three of the teachers at my studio: sweet, bouncy Erin; warm, wise Gina; and Maeve, whose Irish accent is an extra treat.
• Several spur-of-the-moment dinners with friends: Tex-Mex food around our kitchen table (with homemade guacamole), tall sweating glasses of lemonade and good talk. Tapas and arepas eaten outside on warm evenings in Brookline and Cambridge, with red wine and so many stories. There’s nothing like being together.
• The flowers around Cambridge: day lilies in every shade of orange and red, hedges of fragrant jasmine, fences dripping with honeysuckle, the beginnings of hydrangea. And the roses.

• The words I heard coming out of my own mouth as I stood behind the communion table last Sunday: this is a story of love, from the beginning. (I am not sure where that sentence came from, but I needed to hear it.)
• Long walks around Cambridge, no matter the weather: sometimes alone, sometimes with a dear friend.
• The fact that my geraniums – which I really thought had given up the ghost after this long, grey winter and spring – are blooming like they mean it.
• My morning tea, brewed strong in a purple travel mug: currently either MEM Tea ginger peach or Lady Baker’s Blooming Blueberry (from Cambridge and PEI, respectively).
• New shoes that are making my feet so happy: comfy, stylish black Clarks wedges.

• It would go without saying, except I can’t not mention it: my daily trips to Darwin’s, for nourishment on many levels. Hot tea in the morning, English muffins dripping with butter, iced jasmine tea lemonade, smiles and chitchat with my favorite staff members. They are so good to me there.
• Talking to the twentysomething at the farm stand who started a student food pantry at her college.
• A few books that are speaking to my soul in all the best ways: Molly Yeh’s wisecracking, mouthwatering cookbook, Pádraig Ó Tuama’s luminous memoir (above), Mary Oliver and some really fun fiction.

What’s saving your life these days? Please share, if you’d like.

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