Happy Touchstones

June is a sacred month. A halfway point of the year, a mix of spring and summer, a time for fruit and exploration. The solstice is tomorrow, which I always find bittersweet because it marks the start of my favorite season but also the beginning of increased darkness. I am on week ten of the Artist’s Way after a little travel hiatus. There is an exercise this week to write about happy touchstones — “a quick list of things you love.” The list is mostly Summer-specific:

• making coffee in a French press

• humidity

• chunky silver jewelry

• June evening light

• my cat coming when I call, trotting inside happily. makes me feel like a mother yelling for her children to come in for dinner in 1960

• ice coffee with whole milk

• a beautiful, well-planned charcuterie board

• soft leather

• speckled pottery

• colorful Havianas, worn with pants

• an all-consuming novel

• a “can I say something mean…”

• fruit for breakfast

• voice memo walk

• a random roadtrip

• vintage cars with tan leather interior

• silver nails

• colorful compost

• late night room rearranging

• strong, woodsy incense

• farmer’s market haul

• when the fireflies come

Love,

Caitlin