First There was Monday…

…a holiday that we took advantage of as a family, with friends, to go on a hike to Spruce Woods Park. Enzo and I headed the pack… he likes to be in front. We’re the first to catch the view:

Second, there was Tuesday

Plans were set aside to come to the help of a friend in pain from an accidental fall. It was a warm day but I served our family and guests Corn Chowder from an old Food Network cookbook. The recipe feels like an indulgence, for by its simplicity (corn, garlic, scallion whites, salt, a bit of sugar and water) it elevates the taste of corn and magically intensifies it.

Third, Wednesday

Wednesday, we met teachers and brought school supplies to school. I don’t know that it matters what I think of some product or other, but, so far, I’ve been impressed with the durability of L.L. Bean backpacks, the service for outfitting the kids with shoes at Canadian Footwear, and the quiet and calm of the back to school aisle at Superstore in the second week of August.

Fourth, Thursday

I love the experience of hearing or reading another person put into words a thing you haven’t been able to describe yourself. This recently happened on the Ezra Klein podcast, in his interview with Jia Tolentino. It focused a lot on screens and parenting, following Tolentino’s recent article “How CoComelon Captures Our Children’s Attention”. But this part, in which the host is describing his own attention:

… what always feels limited to me is my attention. And a lot of the need to escape is a need to rest my attention and recharge it. […] And what allows me to access the transcendence of my children, of the world is, honestly, how rested and how awake and aware I am. […] So in that way, I think escape is undertheorized. That escape, it can be good or bad. I think we have trouble with this question of, are we distracting ourselves, or are we recovering? Are we getting a kind of necessary contemplation, so that we can come back and experience a world and process what we’ve experienced and seen, or are we running from it? Are we trying not to feel from it? Are we trying to be anywhere but here?

I like how objectively the need to recharge attention is treated.

Fifth, well, it’s Friday

The kids are all at school, the air is cooler and the fridge is full of summertime memories.

Happy Friday!