It has been a slippery time-warp summer. I can’t tell if three months, three years, or three decades has passed.

This may sound strange, but I think it’s a good thing.

Vegas and I went to Poet’s Walk today. The first time I walked along that path was the Summer of ’91. My memory of that summer – oh! I’ve been there a few times since my return to the Hudson Valley in 2021. The longer I’ve been here, the more memories come back to me in bits and glazed pieces.

It feels dreamy – so fast/slow. And bright. Shiny – as if even the present moment is a memory.

Books and the woods are portals to time expansion and time travel. I used to read and finish three or four books a week. Before social media . . .

This morning I wrote in my journal (yeah, I used to write more, too) that I want to read more books – every day.

Reading books is really important to me. And being away from social media is important. Real people are important. Face-to-face is important.

While telling Vegas about the story of that summer over three decades ago – I knew I wrote something aboutit. And here it is – connected with my favorite time-slipping (and banned) writer, Kurt Vonnegut. Ha!

I wrote this at the end of May, 2013:

I finished reading Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut over Memorial Day Weekend. I reminisced about the first time I read it, but what I wrote started a face-to-face discussion later that was really fun. This is what I wrote:

I was 20 years-old the first time I read Cat’s Cradle. The only thing I remember about my first reading was the boy who gave me a copy of the book. I was so in love with him! We met at a Dee-lite concert when they played at City Gardens and he asked me out. He was from Bucks County, PA, and was the most beautiful boy I had ever met in my life – tall and lean, with brown eyes and thick brown hair, he wore linen shirts, and had a way about him that was innocent and playful – I couldn’t believe people like him actually existed! We danced and hiked and biked and wrote fantastical letters to one another.

He had twin brothers, one was evil and the other was more evil. His parents were distraught over my “breeding” and did everything they could to keep us separated. (Of course, all this made me love him more). Then, in the fall, he was off to Bard College and it became obvious I wasn’t fitting in with his new crowd and our true love faded away.

What a magical summer!

By the end of our affair, I was a thorough Vonnegut fan!

In classic Vonnegut form, Cat’s Cradle is dark and satirical, and funny and scary, and timeless. Some of the quotes that struck me are:

Americans are searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.

Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.

Think of peace.
Think of brotherly love.
Think of plenty.
Think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise.

The hand that stocks the drug stores rules the world.

Let us start our Republic with a chain of drug stores, a chain of grocery stores, a chain of gas chambers, and a national game. After that, we can write our Constitution.

What are you reading?

July 19, 2024
Hudson Valley, New York
Venus (Leo) trine North Node (Aries)

Header photo: Queen Anne’s Lace © Holly Troy 2024

Summertime Boy – Photographer unknown circa early 1990s