30 July 2011

counting shooting stars.

"The first stars tremble as if shimmering in green water. Hours must pass before their glimmer hardens into the frozen glitter of diamonds. I shall have a long wait before I witness the soundless frolic of the shooting stars. In the profound darkness of certain nights I have seen the sky streaked with so many trailing sparks that it seemed to me a great gale must be blowing through the outer heavens." Antoine de Saint-ExupĂ©ry.


My entire week has felt like late afternoon on a school day. You know the feeling? When it's lazy and relaxed, without very much to do besides read and drink beverages much too hot for the weather.

It's stifling hot and vibrantly green here. I'm so ready for fall. I've looked over my posts from last fall several times. They only make me wish October would come quickly. In no particular order, here are the things I'm ready for about fall:

-jeans and boots.
-the leaves.
-the weather.
-apple cider.
-soccer season. (no, I don't play, I watch.) (speaking of soccer, Barcelona and Manchester is tonight!)
-You've Got Mail.
-picking apples.
-youth group. I. Miss. It.


Regardless of how ready I am for fall, summer is beautiful.

In the month that I was gone, two of my best friends went to Central Asia, and my younger sister, best friend since birth, went to Colorado. The four of us reunited on Thursday. There's a tradition we started last summer when I returned from Jordan that we've continued throughout this summer. We drive over to my grandma's house. She has a bunkhouse on the edge of her pond that we sleep in. It was perfect this time. The water in the pond was much warmer than it was earlier in the summer, and we had an entire month of stories to catch up on. Anna starts school in a week, the earliest of the four of us, so we have time for roughly two more sleepovers out there.

We watched the stars for a long time. I saw approximately six shooting stars, not counting the airplanes are fireflies. Have you ever done that, faked a shooting star? I think that if you stare at the sky for long enough you start to imagine them there when they really aren't.

I wish you could have seen how heavy the sky was with stars that night. It was so bright out, I'm not even sure how to describe it. About stars:

There's a line in a Regina Spektor song that I really love. It goes like this, "Beneath the stars came falling on our heads/ But they're just old light."

Have you ever thought about that? That the stars we see at night might not even be there any more? I very quickly googled this just to make sure that it's correct, and from what I saw, it is. The nearest star takes four years for its light to reach us. Four years. By the time we're seeing a star, it's just "old light."

So yes, the sky was covered with old light on Wednesday night. There were layers and layers of stars fading out to the edges of the horizon. Night is gorgeous.


I've been reading my way through the various books I brought home from the library this week. Yesterday and today have been J.D. Salinger, specifically the Catcher in the Rye (yesterday) & Franny and Zooey (today). 

Tomorrow and Monday will be Madeleine L'Engle, Tuesday and Wednesday will be the miscellaneous leftovers. What, you don't plan the books you're going to read? 

I've been to the library twice since I've been home, unusual for our family. Normally we go once every two weeks, and I stock up on enough to last me for a while. I love going so often. 


Miss Annie sent me a notebook in the mail a few days ago. It was a really good day, but I think her unexpected package took the cake. This is number three in my collection of Eiffel Tower journals, and I like how different they are while still containing such an iconic structure. 

So tell me: what are you looking forward for most in fall? Do you have any favorite summer traditions? What's an incredible book that you've read recently? And lastly, was there something unexpected about your week that made it just a little bit happier? 

15 comments:

  1. first, love your nail polish in that picture. second, i love stars, more than anything, i could be miserable and totally depressed, and then look at the stars, and be happy again, incandescently happy.
    looking forward to most in the fall: halloween (even though i don't know what i'm going to be). the magic of weekends. dance (i think). new clothes. going to see wicked. when it comes to summer i don't really do anything special except re-read and go see tons of movies. i'm currently reading the invention of hugo cabret, love it. unexpected happiness? new converse, yellow. new songs from itunes, and this really awesome post.
    LF

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  2. I love love love this post!

    In Fall, I'm looking forward to the weather (which is so perfectly cool and crisp); youth group!!; Halloween; Friday night high school football games; my birthday; and just the whole feel of back-to-school and autumn. Fall has a wonderful feel to it.

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  3. Bouquets of newly sharpened pencils! :) I adore "You've Got Mail"- I just watched it again the other day.

    I also adore fall- it's probably my very favorite part of the year (or possibly tied with the Christmas season). I love scarves and boots, the smell of pumpkins and burning wood, beautiful leaves, and trips to the mountains.

    I unexpectedly (or maybe not so much) fell in love with an Avett Brothers CD and a green vintage suitcase this week. Both of these things made me very happy. :) Lovely post!

    ~Kristin

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  4. mmmm, this post made me really happy, Katie. And yes, I'm so excited for autumn!!! Things I'm especially looking forward too:

    soccer {duh ;)}
    sweatshirts and jeans
    hot apple cider
    pumpkins
    my birthday

    yeah...(:

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  5. I can't wait for October because we're going to Florida on spring break! Can't wait! Plus, I just love fall. <3

    "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers is a great book that I just finished. I really enjoyed it!

    Lovely post! :)

    Katie

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  6. I'm so very much looking forward to fall. I love the transitional months of fall and spring, which we don't get near enough of here in Arkansas. I love wearing boots, eating lots of sweet potatoes (and making sweet potato cupcakes). I love hot cocoa and hot tea. Mmmm.

    My absolute favorite thing about summertime is the tomato. I love how I can go to the grocery store or the farmer's market and they're so delicious no matter where they come from, this time of year. Whether it's in a BLT or just cut up and eaten with a fork, I can never get enough tomatoes!

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  7. I <3 stars. They are the most glorious things in the world, I sometimes take my 2 yr old sister outside to lookat the "prettie" (aka stars) I'm not looking forward to "fall" but a good Australian Summer. Mmmmmmm, lots happening in Summer.
    ~
    Autumn

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  8. I sleep with my blind open at the minute, and stare at the sky until I fall asleep, and trick myself into seeing helicopters as shooting stars. Stars are so magical. It's like, this giant ball of gas that's already dead is so beautiful.
    I too am looking forward to Autumn. I like 'autumn' not 'fall', because the silent 'n' makes me think of things to come. I'm looking forward to the splendour of Friday nights, new acrilyic paints, wearing jumpers, feeling like rain is right, and reading endlessly on Sunday afternoons. And of course my birthday.
    Summer to me is everything I've wanted to do for the past school year--all the crafts to be made, all the books to be read, all the sleeps to be slept. Autumn is still my favourite.
    Recently I read The Elegance Of The Hedgehog. It's funny reading translated literature--I get this feeling also when reading translated poetry in Maggie Stiefvater's books, and Japanese haikus too--, thinking how many jokes have passed me over because of the translation, how many carefully constructed sentences are lost, how many lyrical quotes just aren't quite right... And I guess being a translator is like being an author really. And I also read Franny & Zooey this morning. It's very good & very angry.
    This week, the arrival of your postcard yesterday was unexpected and lovely! Thank you. Also, my mum got me a stack of books from my brother's room {he's in Denmark right now} so I've got loads to read, and I think also this post I was not expecting, but it made me happy.
    Wow... Long comment.

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  9. I love Fall too!!! Who doesn't :)

    I'm so happy you liked the notebook!!! Europe/China mix :)

    Lovely post!

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  10. You are just a wonderful human being.

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  11. Beautiful. I'm looking forward to eating meals in the garden without millions of bugs on me. x hivenn

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  12. Your blog is so amazing. I love it. I never have any trouble reading the whole posts, which is not to be taken lightly, because usually I have a short attention span.

    I definitely love all of those things about fall, except I never watch sports and I think apple cider is the worst thing since the Bubonic Plague. Are you talking about You've Got Mail like the movie? I've never seen it before, but it arrived in Netflix today and it has Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan so I think I'm going to watch it at some point even though people will judge me for it.

    It sounds like you've had a pretty good summer. I loved the bit about stars. I appreciated the reference to the Regina Spektor song (Samson, right? I'm sort of her biggest fan on the entire face of the planet), and I definitely think that's cool about seeing stars that no longer exist. The Universe is just baffling.

    How is Franny and Zooey? I've read Catcher in the Rye, but I haven't heard anything about this one.

    I'm also, strangely, looking foward to Youth Group in the fall. I am the antithesis of the ideal follower of any given organized religion, even though I go to Church every Sunday and I love my Youth Group. It's the community that I love. At some point I'm going to accidentally reveal myself as a big fake, but I can treasure it until then.

    The best book I've read this summer is The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

    Have a fantastic week.

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  13. That was a REALLY long comment. Sorry.

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  14. Ahhh, I can't wait for Fall:-) Hot drinks, layered clothing, and lots of family time! xoxo

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  15. LF- oh thanks. :) It's new! this comment just makes me happy.

    Jodie- yay! I love you :)

    Kristin- yes!! it's my favorite part of the year too.

    Lily- your birthday? so exciting!

    Katie- you're going on spring break during the fall? That's so cool!

    Capillya- tomatoes are so good! I miss having such easy access to them during fall and winter.

    Autumn- they're so gorgeous.

    Libby- you're such a talented writer. just this comment made me happy.

    Annie- it was so sweet of you to send it :)

    Kaylie- as are you. :)

    Jazzy- I agree! I'm ready to be done with them.

    Christopher- you are way too nice. same movie! don't worry about it, you can always close your eyes and pretend you're watching Toy Story. Samson is my favorite one of her songs, but I haven't listened to a lot. Which ones do you like best? Franny and Zooey was really good, but it was quite confusing. I think I need to read it again to get the whole thing. Youth group? Woah! That's really cool. And I'll have to check that book out! Thank you so much for the comment, it was so fun to hear all your thoughts. :)

    Bon Bon- so true! :)

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