Oh, how quickly the days speed by! It’s already July and I’m writing like crazy…two novels completed, another in the R and D stage. Yes, writers do research and development, we just don’t refer to it as such!
Had the opportunity to visit the Ohio History Center to read up on Quakers in southern Ohio and their involvement with the Underground Railroad movement in the first half of the nineteenth century. What a fascinating deep dive into that period. I learned so much and still have more to do. My next two excursions involve a trip to the Freedom Museum in Cincinnati and one to Wilmington College to explore their Quaker heritage works.
I’m also developing poems and several courses for the Osher Learning Institute at the University of Dayton, so you can see how it all seems a bit mad. But maybe we all need a little bit of the crazy in our lives…crazy in the sense of courage to strike out into the unknown, the never experienced, the path not yet chosen. Crazy to leave the well-trod trail for the one barely glimpsed through the trees. My mind expands with possibility as I look at the lists of actions to take, trips to make, books to read, and ideas to contemplate. So much depends on letting go of the usual and striking off in new directions.
Whatever you choose to do this month — sit on the patio and read, travel to distant lands, savor good food and memories, may you bring a bit of summer madness to your endeavors!