A million marionberry pies and more

June 2025

I love summer. The warm sun on my skin, the light that stays around so late. The colors. The white of the daisies, the red of the roses, the blue of the expansive sky without a cloud in sight. I love going outside in nothing but an old t-shirt and some ratty jeans. I love the wild and unruly weeds that are everywhere, and the uneven ground of being outside, it makes me feel right being wild and uneven myself.

I love the breeze, which is filled with sweet fragrances, like jasmine. I love the dramatic shadows, the wind rustling, and the birds everywhere. It's such a good season, and as soon as it starts, I'm filled with nostalgia for every summer ever before and also nostalgia for the summer we are in, even right now.

For bike rides, for berry picking, for days on the water. For every summer friendship, summer romance, and summer memory that ever was or could be. I wrote a song once, the hook was "summer–it won't last," and it plays in my head like a soft melody or an awful foreboding tune, depending on my mood.

Colors of summer

I know it's a bit silly, but it's so real for me; savoring something ultimately leads to the knowing that it won't last, and that makes it extra sweet. The summer in the Willamette Valley is so perfect, so dreamy, and also so very fleeting. After 32 of my 33 summers here (I spent the summer of 2012 in the Tahoe National Forest), I figured that perhaps by my 34th, I would have the summer 'recipe' figured out.

I imagine, I'd measured just enough and cut just right to have all my weekends and weekdays filled in just the right way. Enough nature time, enough friend time, enough time with my little family and my big families, enough time biking through the city, eating ice cream, daydreaming in the sun... enough to... I don't know what. Make it through to the winter? Enough to fill me forever and ever? And well, every summer it does, and it is enough, and it also is never enough either.

How can one ever get enough of the sweet smell of jasmine or the lazy afternoons in the grass with the golden orange dogs? I do not know how one ever gets enough of these things, and I think that's the point. Like marionberry pie, I've never had enough of that! I could eat a whole pie, and maybe then it would be enough, but I'm not so sure. I could eat a million pies.

So here I am. In July, the true start to the summer in my mind, and in the same ever-perplexing wonder of how to spend my days. You can't get enough - but it won't be enough - but it is and will be enough! Enjoy it.

There's no maximizing here; there is no goal setting or achieving; there's just savoring every minute and every moment in the warm sun and the cool breeze before it's over. And that is just what I'm going to do this summer, it’s all I can do. And I’m going to try to get back to making art too. I’ve taken such an extended break, and aside from a few smaller sketchbook experiments here and there, I haven’t created much art. I want to get back to it.

A sketchbook experiment, I love the way the yellow turned out

I am almost done reading Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s about “Creative Living,” and it’s been making me think lately about 'how to live a life.' Does one live in the city in a tiny apartment and go to Broadway shows? Does one live on a farm and care for sheep? Does one live in the desert and make art all day? I know people who do live all these ways. What is the best way to live? How do I want to live?

Many people live the life they do because it is the life their parents lived. I have a friend who grew up in eastern Oregon with parents who were teachers. In the summers, they rafted rivers, and in the evenings, they probably sat around reading books. Now, he's a teacher in eastern Oregon, and in the summer, he rafts rivers, and in the evenings, he sits around reading books. The life he lived as a child is the life he lives now. Like kids who go to private school and vacation in Europe, they grow up to have kids who go to private school and vacation in Europe

You get the point. But what about those kids who deviate from the path that their parents choose? City kids, who want to live on a farm? Poor kids who want to be rich? Rich kids, who wish to be poor artists? Suburban kids who want to live in the city? What do they do? How do they decide to live a life? How does one craft a life from the tiny inklings in one's heart, how do you go off script with courage? I’m still learning this myself.

An off-script bikepacking trip to the coast for a long weekend

I grew up in the suburbs, playing street hockey in the cul-de-sac with my siblings, boating on lakes in the summer, going to Disneyland, eating blueberry waffles (the packaged kind), and watching Saturday morning cartoons. I used an old video camera we had and decided I was a 'director'. I watched my dad grow pumpkins, dahlias, and sunflowers in our yard; I played sports; I did little arts and crafts with my mom; I tried to catch my brother on rollerblades, and I took care of my sisters, or one could say I 'oversaw' them as so many older sisters do.

As a teenager, I rode a longboard around and painted my nails black. I learned to sew, and I drew endlessly in the margins of my homework. I got in trouble; I did a lot of dumb teenager shit. I excelled at math and struggled with English, but I loved poetry. I was a schemer and thinker, often failing to follow through on my ideas.

I tie-dyed a lot of clothes, wore ripped jeans, and eventually went to college in Eugene, where I fell in love with bikes, beer, and the outdoors. I was a vegan, a lifeguard, a bike mechanic, a backpacker, a volunteer tree planter, and occasionally a guitar player when I wrote that song about the summer and how it never lasts.

After college, I went on a two-month bike trip and then moved back to Eugene to continue living my perfect life in Eugene. But a year later, in the huff of a heartbreak and the realization that I had no money, I moved "home" to the suburbs of Portland. I licked my wounds and picked myself up.

Then I met Nick; we fell in love over a summer spent mountain biking all over the state, under great pine trees and on perfect sunny days. We moved to "the city" because I was obsessed with walkability (I still am; I hate driving). We had a brief love affair with surfing, got a dog, got married, survived COVID, bought a house with a big yard, and got another dog, and now we're thinking about growing our family, and I can't help but think about what kind of life we want to give to our future child.

I fell in love with gardening, mostly the plants I tend to, and, of course, I'm obsessed with making things. I want to do more drawing, building, sewing, and painting. We still bike, ski, and occasionally go on camping trips to spend time outdoors when we can. We don't live in a mountain town, so we don't do it as often as some do, but we eat delicious food and marvel at the time it takes to get to such incredible places. From the city parks to the riverfront to the coast to the mountain, it feels like we live in the middle of it all, and I like that, and I like the things the city has, too, like incredible ice cream and beautiful city parks.

All this to say, I'm still crafting a life from the tiny inkings in my heart. And even though I don't know how or if I'm doing it right, I'm doing it anyway. I'll be crafting and choosing every day, forever, what kind of life I want to live. There are many ways to live a life, and I feel fortunate that I get to choose how to craft mine.

Thank you for reading! 💙 Ariel