We’ve lived through a blazing hot stretch of weather, quite unseasonable. Last week, L & I retreated up north to try to escape it; we were largely unsuccessful. However, we did manage to find cool breezes at the mouth of the Platte River where it flows into Lake Michigan, although the dunes across the water were obscured in heat haze.

Gradually, over the course of this week, the heat has loosened its grip, but not before we experienced record temps and the hottest day of 2017 in Detroit. Who says climate change is fake news.

With the weather change came an enervating sinus headache that confined me to my bed for a day. It was a day that I needed, hidden away from the world in clouds of diffused Thieves Oil, knitting and watching old PBS dramas about Queens Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, gunpowder plots and treason. Work has been especially tiring lately due to hopefully temporary atmosphere of toxicity and politics that leaves me rageful and completely apathetic by turns. Having been in the corporate world for now fully half of my life, I understand that these times ebb and flow and it’s best to just lay low and ride them out. But it can be a bit taxing to live through.

The bright spot of the week was, unexpectedly, a visit from colleagues from China. There was a striking moment at dinner when one half of the table was talking about social media, how difficult it is to be exposed to so many headlines and clickbait and opinions at the speed of light, how difficult it is to stop and read and research and think and formulate opinions for oneself rather than simply reacting. The other half of the table was discussing how they have to switch VPN’s constantly to obtain access to Google and other Western Internet sites. We find a VPN, the government shuts it down, and we find another, one of my colleagues shrugged.

Now,  finally, my front yard is full of leaves. The grocery stores have big piles of pumpkins and cornstalks. Miss L and her neighborhood friends run and laugh in that particular early-autumn gold light and it’s time to plan her Halloween costume.

I hope you are enjoying your early autumn (or spring for my Southern Hemisphere friends) wherever you are.

xo.