Jun 19, 2022Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
I’m living my dream summer camp right now! I’ve rented a house in the Savoie region of France for 3 months. There’s a cat to feed and a garden to water, with some payback in the form of fresh fruit - but little other responsibility. I’m cycling many of my long desired rides, famous, infamous, and unknown outside this mecca of bike geekdom. On the tired days (of which there are many - I’m over 50), I record my experiences in painting and drawing. I secured a tourist visa, rather than a talent visa, and I’m freed from the side hustle of official work. It’s all just gathering ideas and seeing what happens - the play of youth. It’s unreal and sublime.
Every summer my grandsons (now 9 & 12), come to visit for a week on their own. This summer they've requested 2 weeks. Two months ago I created a page of "things to do", with check boxes for them to select. They pre-selected ALL the boxes. Among those, some of their favorites. We hike through a nearby nature preserve where they can hand feed birds and we learn the various species and names.
We've also discovered an animal rescue farm which has the most zen like animals we've ever encountered. I've asked if the grandkids could volunteer there and the answer is a resounding yes on both ends. Swimming lessons are a must as are picnics, evening puzzles, cardgames, bonfires, daytime playgrounds and river tubing. This year I've added treetop high lining and go kart racing. I am reminded by this post that summers here are really much like a summer camp. There is time for story telling, library visits and reading, lego building, hide and seek, fireflie watching, with a visit to the local university's star gazing observatory, sleeping in the pop up trailer in the backyard and ultimately, heaps of laughter, hugs, endless questions asked and secrets swapped. What could be better? Thankyou Suleika, for this prompt. It is magical.
Jun 19, 2022·edited Jun 19, 2022Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jouad have become my wormhole to life. I await the Newsletter’s drop every Sunday. My mind, which, I must confess, wakens early no matter what I take to aid in sleeping longer stretches, listens for the phone’s notification and hearkens to it when the plink is heard. I read and off I go.
Today, I began thinking about my summers as a child and remembered them being peppered with experiences both wonderful and, at the time, puzzling and anxiety provoking, not having the words to express the BIG emotions that seemed to arise.
Then I read Elena Sheppard’s piece and not only began giving thought to her prompt, falling immediately into the grass and foliage around her family’s cabin, I also followed the link to her page and began reading the pieces it leads to. All the while thoughts of a Cuban friend and her family dancing around my heart.
And then, I write, Sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. I loll around in my bed until I can no longer stand not getting up and making coffee that’s disrupting the reverie that today’s newsletter has sent me into. More than ever, it is at times like this that I so appreciate not having iencumbrances that prompt me to get up and get moving. That is to say, no humans that are calling my name, no pets demanding my attention, and no chore that MUST be done right now.
A different kind of world has opened up to me out of your Isolation journals, Suleika. Sorry I didn’t discover them sooner, but grateful that I have them now. Thank you for that.
Like you, Kristen, I’m living my dream camp - but unlike you I haven’t been able to enjoy it completely yet. But I get a little closer each day.
Three months ago my partner & I moved from a crowded NY suburb to an 18-acre farm in southern Virginia. My partner started her career as a recreation therapist who worked in settings including a drug & alcohol rehab, a nursing home, a children’s burn hospital & a psychiatric hospital. Later she (a former college athlete) got her masters degree and began teaching PE to special needs k-8 students in poor urban areas of Brooklyn. All of that prepared her to launch a third career as a trainer of service dogs for people with disabilities.
So here we are in a gorgeous setting doing just that. Except: on his way to joining us my elderly dad fell ill suddenly. He’s better now but we are revising the plan we made and started putting into place more than a year ago.
The plan: my partner & I train service dogs, travel with them, teach groups about them, visit schools and parks to help teach kids about disability and animal care, and perhaps record our experiences in a video documentary. Meanwhile I write all the novels I keep dreaming about. My dad gardens as he’s able; I cook and we eat the fresh produce we grow (we are in fact growing it). I’m an astrologer so we use our place — its log cabin, huge swimming pool, orchards, vineyards and walking trails — to host spirituality & metaphysics workshops, art & writing retreats, and maybe even serve as a wedding venue for people planning pet-friendly weddings.
My hope is to bring at least some of these ideas to fruition this summer, more of them in the fall, and even more, or all, next summer.
Thank you Suleika & company - I just joined this group and so far really love it. Happy summer wormholes, everyone xox
I decided at the wise, old age of 11 that I “needed” to run a summer art camp in my backyard for the neighborhood kids back in 1971. My mother gave me the green light to design a flyer and hand it out to moms and dads within a two block radius. It was not surprising that twelve children arrived, ranging in age from 4-10, to create art with me. Their parents looked thrilled to have somewhere for their kids to be entertained for $1 a day, and the children were overjoyed and enthusiastic to express themselves using cut paper, colored sand, pressed flowers, tempera paint and wire hanger mobiles. Motoring ahead fifty years, my joy is still found in exploring the natural world during summer and conjuring up creations with unique leaves, feathers, torn paper, and paint with my tiny grandchildren. The creative process is elevated when you can be bathed in sunlight or work in dappled shade made by the whispering trees overhead. Ahhhhh, summer!
Quite a timely prompt. A week or so ago, I came across my old baseball glove in the basement, now stiff and somewhat moldy. I knew it was there, and I'd previously thought that I should try to restore it. The difference now, I think, is the influence of the 100-day project. I watched a few videos and, thank you Amazon, bought some products for the task.
Getting that glove, when I was 12 or so, was a big deal. I know it was a stretch for my single-mom's budget. In today's dollars, it would be about $300. It was a serious glove for a sports-crazy kid.
I finished applying the 3rd coat of leather conditioner a couple days ago. It smells like leather now, but not just any leather. Putting it to my face, I was instantly taken back through that wormhole, and remembered what that specific glove smelled like. It was so unexpected, and familiar, like it's been etched forever in memory.
It transported me back to that time when we were, as a friend says, "free-range kids", even more so given my mom was single and worked. Like Suleika, I've been thinking about the feeling of those free and easy summers. I've been making an effort to be outside as much as possible, pausing to notice the sights and sounds -- of nature, but also everything else that summer brings.
This feels like more than "just nostalgia". It's like a reminder, that we can still conjure up those parts of us, finding that sense of ease, freedom, and immediacy of experience.
I've also ordered a baseball and one of those pitch-back nets so that I can feel the pop of the ball in the glove again.
When the screen door closed and the sun was hot- I listened to the sound of soap opera's coming from inside the house. I remember some of them vividly. Soap Opera's were comforting- I grew up loving them-although I no longer watch or keep up. Maybe the time is right to return to Another World.
Truth be told listening to my front door close at my home, in Lynn, Mass, in the evening, I could now relax trying to fall asleep at night. I was left alone a lot in our big, old Georgian home, and as old homes go, I would hear lots of creaks and noises that would scare little me in my bed all alone. My mum was violent, may she Rest In Peace, with me, by beating me with a strap, whenever she would lose it. As a 7 year old, I thought all kids my age, had the same kind of household. The best part of being left alone a lot was listening to the music of Broadway shows and dancing and singing around the house with my partner, my broomstick. When it was time to put myself to bed, especially in n the summer, with windows open, I’d hear all sorts of noises that would scare a kid like me, and I would lay stiff as a board in my twin bed, not ever going to sleep, until I heard the key in the front door, and I could now rest, because someone was home. It took me years to work through the traumas and to have peace at bedtime. The only time, as a kid, my summers were fun, was when I was away from my family, with my friends, by the ocean, which was only a block away, and I could forget, for a short amount of time, and be the joyful and fun little girl I was. My joy and delight and curiosity and love of music and dance has helped me during my darkest of times.
If you met me today, you would meet this joyful, alive woman, who has kept her little girl inside, safe, protected and appreciated.
Oh this sublime Wormhole of Summer...where to start and never wanting it to end...each day would be sunny, low humidity, a roster of activities to do or not to do. Brunch is a must have for me-surrounded by others who share my extreme love of both the outdoors and endless glasses of champagne that miraculously do not provide a hangover, flaky pastries, generous slabs of butter, coffee so rich and dark punctuated by half and half, conversation that intertwines the deep and the shallow...so much laughter that tears spill. Night time we gather round a large fire, each covered in warm blankets that sink into our body folds as we cradle cups of tea, the steam rising like little clouds in front of our faces, sometimes talking, sometimes just feeling the warm, comforting energy of the kindred spirits sharing their presence. Thank you, Suleika, for the prompt to dream up with no restrictions, no parameters, no measure of success...just the right and freedom to "be".
Jun 19, 2022Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
We didn’t have a summer camp growing up in Japan, but I’d enjoy a dance summer camp, similar to the workshop I had at Esalen, Big Sur, CA. We dance in the morning, some free time in the afternoon, and dance again in the evening.
The memory of a door sound…was a frightening one. We always lived in apartments and the door at that time just slammed shut with my right fingers in between. Miraculously, I didn’t break my bones. The scar did remain though after many years and that was how I remembered right and left, the one with scars is my right hand.
Oh the screen door of my youth—an aluminum number from the kitchen to the backyard—I had eleven siblings. Let me tell you, it was noisy and we were always in trouble for letting it slam, a whacking sound that reverberated throughout our tiny house. Haha I can hear my mum and older siblings shouting, Don’t slam the back door!
In my adult summer camp, I’d offer something to do with watercolors, form a rock band, and have story time around the campfire each night.
My Grandgirls would visit "Camp Poppy" and we let them have Carte Blanche in the basement. We set up an old table with a mirror at their height. Goodwill & yard sale shopping provided a trunk load of dress-up clothes and wigs, while make-up, crowns and jewels were gained from dollar type stores. The girls created magic at every visit. Hopefully the memories will last a lifetime.
Jun 19, 2022Liked by Suleika Jaouad, Carmen Radley
Seemingly the best times in life, now that I think back to it. That summer wormhole began the first day school ended and as long as we had food in our bellies, there was always something to do. Going away to a camp was never a luxury we could afford but there was a forest like environment and a stream nearby.
According to my parents, we were bad kids, but we had a great time. My dream camp provided all of my comrades with fishin' poles - required no shoes all summer - had tree climbing on the daily roster and never ever let girls into the circle. :)
I would love a wine tasting summer camp near a beach with mountains in the distance. I could bring my dog Winston and my laptop to keep posting my substacks. Also, I would enjoy learning how to get published. So maybe a camp counselor could offer classes around that!
I am lucky enough to have a condo at the Jersey shore. A mile from the Spring Lake beach. My dream has been to live there uninterrupted for a summer but I only get there for days at a time due to current health issues & frequent NY appts -(Chronic Leukemia, AFib since 2/1) & a disabled brother, other people’s needs, etc This prompt is an encouragement from you all, to find some time where I can learn to maybe find at least some days into weeks in between appts where I can give myself what I hear would be helpful. Time to read, be bored, not look around at what needs to be fixed or improved, just be. Music, meditate, go through photos, bike ride, the whole pleasure bit. Enjoy the first day of summer, friends! Xo
I’m living my dream summer camp right now! I’ve rented a house in the Savoie region of France for 3 months. There’s a cat to feed and a garden to water, with some payback in the form of fresh fruit - but little other responsibility. I’m cycling many of my long desired rides, famous, infamous, and unknown outside this mecca of bike geekdom. On the tired days (of which there are many - I’m over 50), I record my experiences in painting and drawing. I secured a tourist visa, rather than a talent visa, and I’m freed from the side hustle of official work. It’s all just gathering ideas and seeing what happens - the play of youth. It’s unreal and sublime.
Every summer my grandsons (now 9 & 12), come to visit for a week on their own. This summer they've requested 2 weeks. Two months ago I created a page of "things to do", with check boxes for them to select. They pre-selected ALL the boxes. Among those, some of their favorites. We hike through a nearby nature preserve where they can hand feed birds and we learn the various species and names.
We've also discovered an animal rescue farm which has the most zen like animals we've ever encountered. I've asked if the grandkids could volunteer there and the answer is a resounding yes on both ends. Swimming lessons are a must as are picnics, evening puzzles, cardgames, bonfires, daytime playgrounds and river tubing. This year I've added treetop high lining and go kart racing. I am reminded by this post that summers here are really much like a summer camp. There is time for story telling, library visits and reading, lego building, hide and seek, fireflie watching, with a visit to the local university's star gazing observatory, sleeping in the pop up trailer in the backyard and ultimately, heaps of laughter, hugs, endless questions asked and secrets swapped. What could be better? Thankyou Suleika, for this prompt. It is magical.
The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jouad have become my wormhole to life. I await the Newsletter’s drop every Sunday. My mind, which, I must confess, wakens early no matter what I take to aid in sleeping longer stretches, listens for the phone’s notification and hearkens to it when the plink is heard. I read and off I go.
Today, I began thinking about my summers as a child and remembered them being peppered with experiences both wonderful and, at the time, puzzling and anxiety provoking, not having the words to express the BIG emotions that seemed to arise.
Then I read Elena Sheppard’s piece and not only began giving thought to her prompt, falling immediately into the grass and foliage around her family’s cabin, I also followed the link to her page and began reading the pieces it leads to. All the while thoughts of a Cuban friend and her family dancing around my heart.
And then, I write, Sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. I loll around in my bed until I can no longer stand not getting up and making coffee that’s disrupting the reverie that today’s newsletter has sent me into. More than ever, it is at times like this that I so appreciate not having iencumbrances that prompt me to get up and get moving. That is to say, no humans that are calling my name, no pets demanding my attention, and no chore that MUST be done right now.
A different kind of world has opened up to me out of your Isolation journals, Suleika. Sorry I didn’t discover them sooner, but grateful that I have them now. Thank you for that.
Love and blessings from wherever they might come.
Like you, Kristen, I’m living my dream camp - but unlike you I haven’t been able to enjoy it completely yet. But I get a little closer each day.
Three months ago my partner & I moved from a crowded NY suburb to an 18-acre farm in southern Virginia. My partner started her career as a recreation therapist who worked in settings including a drug & alcohol rehab, a nursing home, a children’s burn hospital & a psychiatric hospital. Later she (a former college athlete) got her masters degree and began teaching PE to special needs k-8 students in poor urban areas of Brooklyn. All of that prepared her to launch a third career as a trainer of service dogs for people with disabilities.
So here we are in a gorgeous setting doing just that. Except: on his way to joining us my elderly dad fell ill suddenly. He’s better now but we are revising the plan we made and started putting into place more than a year ago.
The plan: my partner & I train service dogs, travel with them, teach groups about them, visit schools and parks to help teach kids about disability and animal care, and perhaps record our experiences in a video documentary. Meanwhile I write all the novels I keep dreaming about. My dad gardens as he’s able; I cook and we eat the fresh produce we grow (we are in fact growing it). I’m an astrologer so we use our place — its log cabin, huge swimming pool, orchards, vineyards and walking trails — to host spirituality & metaphysics workshops, art & writing retreats, and maybe even serve as a wedding venue for people planning pet-friendly weddings.
My hope is to bring at least some of these ideas to fruition this summer, more of them in the fall, and even more, or all, next summer.
Thank you Suleika & company - I just joined this group and so far really love it. Happy summer wormholes, everyone xox
I decided at the wise, old age of 11 that I “needed” to run a summer art camp in my backyard for the neighborhood kids back in 1971. My mother gave me the green light to design a flyer and hand it out to moms and dads within a two block radius. It was not surprising that twelve children arrived, ranging in age from 4-10, to create art with me. Their parents looked thrilled to have somewhere for their kids to be entertained for $1 a day, and the children were overjoyed and enthusiastic to express themselves using cut paper, colored sand, pressed flowers, tempera paint and wire hanger mobiles. Motoring ahead fifty years, my joy is still found in exploring the natural world during summer and conjuring up creations with unique leaves, feathers, torn paper, and paint with my tiny grandchildren. The creative process is elevated when you can be bathed in sunlight or work in dappled shade made by the whispering trees overhead. Ahhhhh, summer!
Quite a timely prompt. A week or so ago, I came across my old baseball glove in the basement, now stiff and somewhat moldy. I knew it was there, and I'd previously thought that I should try to restore it. The difference now, I think, is the influence of the 100-day project. I watched a few videos and, thank you Amazon, bought some products for the task.
Getting that glove, when I was 12 or so, was a big deal. I know it was a stretch for my single-mom's budget. In today's dollars, it would be about $300. It was a serious glove for a sports-crazy kid.
I finished applying the 3rd coat of leather conditioner a couple days ago. It smells like leather now, but not just any leather. Putting it to my face, I was instantly taken back through that wormhole, and remembered what that specific glove smelled like. It was so unexpected, and familiar, like it's been etched forever in memory.
It transported me back to that time when we were, as a friend says, "free-range kids", even more so given my mom was single and worked. Like Suleika, I've been thinking about the feeling of those free and easy summers. I've been making an effort to be outside as much as possible, pausing to notice the sights and sounds -- of nature, but also everything else that summer brings.
This feels like more than "just nostalgia". It's like a reminder, that we can still conjure up those parts of us, finding that sense of ease, freedom, and immediacy of experience.
I've also ordered a baseball and one of those pitch-back nets so that I can feel the pop of the ball in the glove again.
When the screen door closed and the sun was hot- I listened to the sound of soap opera's coming from inside the house. I remember some of them vividly. Soap Opera's were comforting- I grew up loving them-although I no longer watch or keep up. Maybe the time is right to return to Another World.
Truth be told listening to my front door close at my home, in Lynn, Mass, in the evening, I could now relax trying to fall asleep at night. I was left alone a lot in our big, old Georgian home, and as old homes go, I would hear lots of creaks and noises that would scare little me in my bed all alone. My mum was violent, may she Rest In Peace, with me, by beating me with a strap, whenever she would lose it. As a 7 year old, I thought all kids my age, had the same kind of household. The best part of being left alone a lot was listening to the music of Broadway shows and dancing and singing around the house with my partner, my broomstick. When it was time to put myself to bed, especially in n the summer, with windows open, I’d hear all sorts of noises that would scare a kid like me, and I would lay stiff as a board in my twin bed, not ever going to sleep, until I heard the key in the front door, and I could now rest, because someone was home. It took me years to work through the traumas and to have peace at bedtime. The only time, as a kid, my summers were fun, was when I was away from my family, with my friends, by the ocean, which was only a block away, and I could forget, for a short amount of time, and be the joyful and fun little girl I was. My joy and delight and curiosity and love of music and dance has helped me during my darkest of times.
If you met me today, you would meet this joyful, alive woman, who has kept her little girl inside, safe, protected and appreciated.
Oh this sublime Wormhole of Summer...where to start and never wanting it to end...each day would be sunny, low humidity, a roster of activities to do or not to do. Brunch is a must have for me-surrounded by others who share my extreme love of both the outdoors and endless glasses of champagne that miraculously do not provide a hangover, flaky pastries, generous slabs of butter, coffee so rich and dark punctuated by half and half, conversation that intertwines the deep and the shallow...so much laughter that tears spill. Night time we gather round a large fire, each covered in warm blankets that sink into our body folds as we cradle cups of tea, the steam rising like little clouds in front of our faces, sometimes talking, sometimes just feeling the warm, comforting energy of the kindred spirits sharing their presence. Thank you, Suleika, for the prompt to dream up with no restrictions, no parameters, no measure of success...just the right and freedom to "be".
We didn’t have a summer camp growing up in Japan, but I’d enjoy a dance summer camp, similar to the workshop I had at Esalen, Big Sur, CA. We dance in the morning, some free time in the afternoon, and dance again in the evening.
The memory of a door sound…was a frightening one. We always lived in apartments and the door at that time just slammed shut with my right fingers in between. Miraculously, I didn’t break my bones. The scar did remain though after many years and that was how I remembered right and left, the one with scars is my right hand.
Oh the screen door of my youth—an aluminum number from the kitchen to the backyard—I had eleven siblings. Let me tell you, it was noisy and we were always in trouble for letting it slam, a whacking sound that reverberated throughout our tiny house. Haha I can hear my mum and older siblings shouting, Don’t slam the back door!
In my adult summer camp, I’d offer something to do with watercolors, form a rock band, and have story time around the campfire each night.
Cheers! Thanks for the wormhole!
My Grandgirls would visit "Camp Poppy" and we let them have Carte Blanche in the basement. We set up an old table with a mirror at their height. Goodwill & yard sale shopping provided a trunk load of dress-up clothes and wigs, while make-up, crowns and jewels were gained from dollar type stores. The girls created magic at every visit. Hopefully the memories will last a lifetime.
Seemingly the best times in life, now that I think back to it. That summer wormhole began the first day school ended and as long as we had food in our bellies, there was always something to do. Going away to a camp was never a luxury we could afford but there was a forest like environment and a stream nearby.
According to my parents, we were bad kids, but we had a great time. My dream camp provided all of my comrades with fishin' poles - required no shoes all summer - had tree climbing on the daily roster and never ever let girls into the circle. :)
I would love a wine tasting summer camp near a beach with mountains in the distance. I could bring my dog Winston and my laptop to keep posting my substacks. Also, I would enjoy learning how to get published. So maybe a camp counselor could offer classes around that!
Thanks for the Sunday morning belly laugh, “watercolors and prank calls…”summer camp! That sounds like a fun camp!
Mine would be a swimming camp that included swimming in lakes, oceans, waterfalls and rivers and pools. And silly water ballet.
I am lucky enough to have a condo at the Jersey shore. A mile from the Spring Lake beach. My dream has been to live there uninterrupted for a summer but I only get there for days at a time due to current health issues & frequent NY appts -(Chronic Leukemia, AFib since 2/1) & a disabled brother, other people’s needs, etc This prompt is an encouragement from you all, to find some time where I can learn to maybe find at least some days into weeks in between appts where I can give myself what I hear would be helpful. Time to read, be bored, not look around at what needs to be fixed or improved, just be. Music, meditate, go through photos, bike ride, the whole pleasure bit. Enjoy the first day of summer, friends! Xo