What I Did On My Summer Vacation

[Written 8.31.2025] Tonight I went to the beach, I think for the only time this summer. It was the last hour of daylight before the end of August. Now, there were reasons the summer got away from me, beach-wise. So, just to feel that I didn’t miss the summer-ness of summer, I thought I’d think through what happened in the last 3 months:

In June:

• Finished #22daysofbeinghuman video challenge on Instagram (@cmmerry)

• Survived surprise appendicitis & recovered over time

• Featured poet at a Blank Verse Reading at Northtown Library

• Did a music & poetry set (& a half sorta) at Barnstock in Spring Valley, MN

• Saw my friend Marcy Andersen get baptized! The last 6 months had been kind of a weird & wonderful turning of a page in her life, and it was just cool to be a part of it. [as a disclaimer, I’m a person of faith and we’ve been good friends for maybe 7 years(?), but this was all on her own, I was just an (admittedly happy, biased) observer of this]

• Read Dear Writer by Maggie Smith, Worldly Things by Michael Kleber Diggs, Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy, and Arias by Sharon Olds

  
  

In July

• 2^nd time attending AudioFeed Music Fest in Champaign, IL with Tommy, felt much more connected, another poetry set at impromptu stage (& reconnected with college friend Michael Uhler & old friend Vanessa Bawinkel & family!)

• Finalized preparation of grant application form with board of Jessa Roquest Music Foundation!

• Nursed our little Ramona back to health after she had a 14-stitches surgery on a weird ear hemmorhage (aural hematoma)

• Had an idea that maybe a tee w/Audrey & Ramona might be something people like & Tommy made it happen with a ‘Toilet Rats Love Black Cats’ tee fundraiser to cover Ramona’s surgery costs.

• Turned 49! (& got my family to celebrate it with deep dish pizza, at Giordano’s which I love, in August!)

• Read The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson, Sandwich by Catherine Newman, and The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Janasson.

In August

• I finished journaling 200 days of dreams (more on that another time)

• Hosted Music in the Backwoods with the Jessa Roquet Music Foundation & we had Naomi Marie perform!

• Saw friend Joy Lewis do her first poetry feature, and Marcy do her first in years!

• Started a mysterious project with my old Starbucks coworker/buddy Steve Beavers & friends :) (stay tuned)

• Got ISBNs into/onto the books I am releasing this year (one new & one a reprint), worked with a friend to finalize the covers, and approved proofs for printing! (Also landed on a release date/time & place – save 3-5 pm Sat Oct 18 @ Cosmic Coffee!)

• Got our weatherstripping replaced on garage & new garage side door.

• Developed an interest in screenwriting and asked some friends for book recs on screenwriting.

• Read What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Yoo, Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley, The Shepherd of Princes by Michael Bonikowsky and Leviticus (Bible, ESV)

Also hosted 2 of the 3 ‘Connect 4’ groups with church over the summer, saw my #goals flower patch of zinnias & cosmos bloom successfully (not counting all the zinnias eaten by the bunnies), and huge bushes of Mexican sunflowers bloomed (a relief since last year they died/were eaten immediately) in addition to our wild sunflowers which I now nearly take for granted to the point I have stopped counting their blooms! And took jillions of walks. I have also been reading (accidentally, the unabridged 45 hour listening version of) The Stand by Stephen King, FOREVER (I blame this on friend Taylor Westerberg who suggested the book but did not mention there was more than one version! ;) - finishing tonight 9/7 as I post this!), and also The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L Shirer (57 listening hours), FOREVER & keep running out of time on the Libby app and have to give them back. To be fair, I tend to take breaks from them for lighter listening because ‘tis necessary. A few other physical books too that I’m in the middle of… After reading all this, I have an inkling of why I feel so tired. In case you're wondering, a couple favorites from those books would be - fiction: Migrations & The Shepherd of Princes & The Stand (all probably fall into the realm of 'survival lit' which I've discovered I have a penchant for, tho' that was not known/planned in advance); nonfiction: Dear Writer, which I've decided I probably need to get a physical copy of and revisit, and What My Bones Know (hard reading at times as deals with trauma/complex PTSD, but I appreciated her scientific way of processing her experiences through experimenting with many approaches to find understanding).

I have so very very much to be thankful for – and I am sure I missed a lot of stuff here. That said, NEXT YEAR I want more beach time. I think it’s good for my soul.

What did you do this summer, and what do you wish you’d done more of? It’s time to dream!