Summer Humidity and Ice Cream Treats

Heat-waving hello👋🏻

Hello everyone,

I hope you’re feeling good today. <3 I wanted to say thank you so very much for everyone who sent along their mailing addresses! If you haven’t yet, please submit to the survey in my previous post. :) I did receive a handful of email addresses, so make sure to send your postage address if you like. :)) I also really want to say thank you with all my heart for the beautiful notes you shared. I wish I could reply to them all, though for some reason it doesn’t seem to share in the survey who each message was written by. I will investigate further through tech support, and hopefully be able to reply to each of you. Though if for some reason it isn’t possible, please know that I read your words and I was deeply grateful and emotionally moved by them all.

I have the keys now to my new workspace, everything is packed, and starting to set everything up. It will be a place to compose, practice, and record music, a place to write and work on manuscripts and editing projects, a place to study and have meetings, a place to see clients for grief coaching and reiki both online and in person - a place to learn and share. I’m looking forward to hosting you in a physical and virtual sense. I’ve always wanted to be able to do more frequent and regularly scheduled online workshops, and this will be a perfect place for us to gather and share more of what we’ve already been doing since December.

So here is a new survey for all my subscribers, to gauge your topic interests and availability. I had done this when I first launched my Substack through a Google survey, and I still have your answers from then, as well. It’s been a while though, and we’ve all shared so much since then, so I wanted to check in again on these questions. :)

I know that many people are traveling or feeling the draining lethargy of summer heat. I think when autumn returns it will be lovely to get cozy into these spaces of exploration and sharing together. Imagine a nice autumnal afternoon or evening, in a favorite sweater with a mug of tea or coffee, pen and notebook in hand, ready to dive into something new, with a newly discovered group of compassionate and curious like-minded ones. I really look forward to it all.

For a bit of levity, I decided to google ‘humidity haiku.’ This one by L.M. Giannone, I think is my favorite:

Humid summer’s day

Chasing the Good Humor man

lemon Italian ice treat

I especially liked this one because it brought up three realities for me within one poem. The first line was the present reality, sitting here in the heat wave with the city’s hot breath between the buildings. The second line made me think of summers in Michigan, playing in the street on a hot day, and hearing the cheerful and welcomed song of the ice cream truck. We all would scatter instantly, running home to our respective houses to ask our parents for the money needed for a cold treat. There were so many good choices. Bubble Play - the cherry baseball mitt with the bubblegum baseball. The Super Mario bar or the Snoopy one. The Sonic bar or a Snow Cone. A Screwball or a Jet Star popsicle (also known as Mega Missile and other names). It was an important choice as the truck would show up without schedule or plan, and you had to be lucky enough to be home or outside when it decided to show. A Flintstones Push Up Pop might have been my most frequented selection, but it’s hard to remember for sure. Thinking of each of them brings a wave of nostalgia and I wish for just a few minutes I could transport myself back to those moments again.

The third line of the haiku actually reminds me of two different memories, first and foremost being my Grandma and being at her house in New Jersey when I was little. In the basement laundry room there was a sliding freezer where she kept different goods, including the coveted water ice selection. ‘Water ice’ is how she referred to it, and how I learned to call it. Though after I moved to NYC when I was 9, a visit to a pizzeria for ‘Italian ice’ was an important mission on a hot day, on any day really.

So these are a few nice memories to cool a summer heat wave day. What are some of your memories? What does this haiku make you think of? In the comments, share your memories, about ice cream and trucks, summer days, or anything. Or if you like, write your own summer haiku for us to read. I would love to read anything you would like to share today.

Thank you all for reading and participating in the survey. Thank you all for everything.

Have a great day. :)