.open your life, open your hand.

It's August, some how. The summer seems to be evaporating faster than last. I've spent the last two days at Lake Chelan, a place I visited every summer growing up. A place of endless days of sun and swims and no schedule.

It's been a wild and full few weeks with a busy schedule, teaching a slow stitch class, work, unexpected news, slow days, fast days, river dips, community meals, evening walks, good conversations, more unexpected news, art shows, lake swims, and an expanding heart.I saw this poem a few days ago and it felt so true.
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Let July be July
by Morgan Harper Nichols

Let July be July.
Let August be August.
And let yourself

just be
even in
the uncertainty.
You don’t have to fix
everything.
You don’t have solve
everything.
And you can still
find peace
and grow
in the wild
of changing things.
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but maybe the most summer of all summer poems is this one, a Mary Oliver classic.

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I don’t want to live a small life.
Open your eyes, open your hands.
I have just come from the berry fields, the sun

kissing me with its golden mouth all the way
(open your hands) and the wind-winged clouds
following along thinking perhaps I might

feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes
only to you. Look how many small
but so sweet and maybe the last gift

I will bring to anyone in this
world of hope and risk, so do
Look at me. Open your life, open your hands.
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The fire season sunsets are electric - quick explosion in the sky before the night settles in. The days are getting shorter with full darkness by 9:30 PM. The summer is fading but it's still August. Unexpected and full and alive.

I don't want to live a small life.
Open your eyes, open your hands.