Welcome back to the Sanctuary . . . where once a week – on Fridays – I aim to preserve my sanity. And maybe yours, too. If you missed my inaugural Sanctuary post (the one where I explained all this), you can find it here.
So. What have I got for you this week? Three things + a bonus: Something book-ish. Something creative. Something fun. And a really lovely poem.
Ready?
Something Book-ish
For several years, Mary graciously hosted Summer Book Bingo over on her blog. It was a really fun way for readers here in Blogland to plan out their summer reading schedules, explore new genres, and generally re-live their nostalgic Library Summer Reading Programs from days (long) gone by.
I was reminded of Summer Book Bingo earlier this week, when the New York Times Book Review published their Summer Reading Bucket List.
I decided to do a little . . . Sanctuary Summer Reading “Thing.” NOT a bingo. NOT a competition. Just a fun way to keep track of your reading over the summer — and maybe to help you think about books in a different way.
So save (or print) (or whatever) this bucket list . . . and then let me know – at the end of the summer – how your reading compares to this list. (I’ll remind you.)
There won’t be any prizes, but I’ll put together a blog post to celebrate our summer reading prowess.
Reading . . . as sanctuary.
Something Creative
Between my 5th and 6th grade years, I went to summer camp in Wisconsin with my neighborhood bestie, Wendy. It was my first time at sleep-away camp . . . and it was for two weeks, which was a week too long for me. But I survived. And I generally had a lot of fun. (It was an evangelical church camp, though, which my mom wasn’t really aware of when she allowed me to go. I do have a few stories I could share about my evangelical camp experiences. But I’ll save them for another time. If ever.)
Every day after lunch, we campers had an hour of “free time” while our food settled and before our afternoon activities of swimming and archery and horseback riding . (The intention was that we use that time for independent Bible study, but it wasn’t enforced.). I always used that time to go back behind our cabin – by myself – to build a miniature “nature house” down in and among the trees in the bordering woods. These days, it would have been called a “fairy garden,” but back then, I just found an interesting spot at the base of a tree, and filled it with my creations of moss and sticks and rocks and acorns. I loved it! And to this day, that independent, creative activity is my favorite memory of a generally good camp experience.
I follow an artist on Instagram (@kaleandconjure) . . . who encourages creativity for all by posting fun and easy find-your-creativity prompts. And this week? You guessed it . . . fairy gardens (or, as I prefer to call them, “nature gardens”).
Take a look. And maybe build one in your own backyard!
Something Fun
When I was a kid, I loved watching the Harlem Globetrotters. I’m really not sure if they’re still . . . A Thing . . . but I did have fun watching this little video when it appeared in my Instagram feed recently.
I thought you might appreciate the JOY . . . in the rhythm and the skill.
+ a Bonus
A lovely poem . . . that just seems perfect for these very (VERY) weird days . . .
SPELL AGAINST INDIFFERENCE
by Maria PopovaThe rain falls and falls
cool, bottomless, and prehistoric
falls like night —
not an ablution
not a baptism
just a small reason
to remember
all we know of Heaven
to remember
we are still here
with our love songs and our wars,
our space telescopes and our table tennis.Here too
in the wet grass
half a shell
of a robin’s egg
shimmers
blue as a newborn star
fragile as a world.
And that’s it for this week.
I hope you found some sanctuary here today.
At least for a few minutes.
Enjoy the weekend!
Find some joy.
Protect your peace.
Resist, my friends.
Resist.
(And just a reminder: June 14 approaches. Get thee to a protest. You’ll like it. I promise.)
My daughter and I downloaded a summer reading list from NYPL and it is giving us the opportunity to do some reading together this summer.
I’ve copied that list because I think I can likely check every one of those boxes off without trying too hard! I am not surprised to hear about your nature creations as a child given how much you enjoy both gardening and playing with materials in your studio. We had that same “rest hour” at summer camp, though I think we had to stay in our cabins; no surprise that I was usually reading. Thanks for making me guffaw with that cartoon — I’m totally sharing that with my work colleagues!
What a sweet, sweet poem and the cartoon is great! I. too loved watching the Harlem Globetrotters when I was a kid. It was almost like magic.
When I was growing up and we would spend a month (sometimes more) at a camp (cabin) on a lake in Vermont, my brother Chris and I would spend hours building little houses out of sticks, moss, birch bark, etc. at the base of trees. We created driveways and roads and just had a ball. When Colin was a toddler, he and I built houses like that at a lake in upstate NY. Priceless memories!
And just the other day I was remembering Book Bingo with Mary. I think that was one way I was introduced to so many of you!
I laughed at that Thesaurus Rex as well! Yesterday was summer reading kickoff at my local library… it was so awesome to see so many children excited about books! Summer reading FTW… always! And that poem… perfection. Thank you so much for sharing it! (and who didn’t LOVE the Harlem Globe Trotters!) And thanks for that Fairy home inspiration… simple and yet so perfect!
Terrific ideas and shares this week! I’m all in for a Summer Reading thing. Don’t worry, I won’t call it a challenge. We build fairy gardens at the library every summer as part of the Summer Reading program and they are all so cute and some are VERY elaborate. I remember always wanting to go see the Harlem Globetrotters when I was a kid!
I used to love participating in the summer reading programs at our library when I was a kid. I don’t plan my reading now just like I didn’t then but reading is a good thing for me so far this summer. Right now I’m reading about the Roosevelt brothers searching for pandas in the Himalayas and Robert MacFarlane going on about rivers all over the world – travel and adventure without leaving home.
The poem is perfect. I have often thought of the Fairy Gardens. Maybe I need one this year. A bit of magic never hurts and often helps. The cartoon of the dinos makes me smile. Thanks Kym.
The NYT reading list looks very much like what I read monthly. The poem is lovely and I copied it into my date book to have as a reminder and keepsake. The cartoon made me laugh out loud!
I just caught up on over a week’s worth of your blog posts: yikes! (I’ve been consuming the news, which in turn has been consuming me. But also stepping away from the computer altogether, so I’m staying healthy.) But I had to comment on the Globe Trotters: Not only are they still a thing, their 2025 tour brought them to Kalamazoo in January!