World shaping

I woke up this morning with a heavy weight on my chest, and I couldn't figure out why. It's been a while since I've awoken in such a low mood, feeling sad and lost, with no good reason. Maybe I have too much time on my hands. I'm eager to get started on the next book, but the contract is taking a while, in part because most people in publishing vacate the city in August, and everything just about shuts down. 

On Instagram, I see posts by people from many different circles of my life, all of them in the mix with one another on Martha's Vineyard, where the cool folks meet up in Oak Bluffs, the preferred playground of almost everyone I know, it seems, come August. Even the Obamas are part of the scene, along with some people whose books I've written, and the editors who've published them. Many people are surprised that I've never been there. Our family never started that summer ritual when our kids were small, as we always decamped instead to the Caribbean. We had parents, grandparents, and other relatives to visit—and stay for free—in three different islands, Jamaica, Antigua, and St. Lucia, so Martha's Vineyard never elbowed its way onto the vacation roster. 

I'm not proud to admit that I secretly battle intense fomo as I browse social media, watching everyone live their best life on turquoise shores and gather in summer whites on the porches of cottage style homes. But that's not why I feel blue today. Maybe I just feel lonely. Everyone is off doing their lives, going to work, traveling abroad, resting in their country houses, and I am just here, marking time. I guess I'm trying to touch the sadness I'm feeling with this post, to write it out of me, to seek all my blessings on the other side. 

The man and I will be married 38 years this Friday. I've made a reservation to celebrate with our kids and their loves at a restaurant owned by a member of the Top Chef family. At the restaurant's invitation, my daughter and I pre-selected dishes from their menu to customize the experience—three appetizers, three entrees, two sides, and two desserts—which they will serve family style for our group of seven, and for which they will print a personalized "Happy 38th Anniversary" menu with our names at the top, a nice keepsake of the evening. 

All that to say, there's nothing I can point to that is truly amiss in my world, other than my internal weather just ebbing and flowing again, as it does sometimes. Perhaps I will take my Kindle outside and sit on a bench under a tree and read and breathe in nature till the heavy gray clouds dissipate a bit. 

Here's a lovely spot of brightness, our darling Harper, now fifteen months old, looking very demure, very mindful, very cutesy (it's a Tik Tok meme, however I'm told by my nieces that the moment you try to explain a meme, it's already passé, so I'll just say, if you know you know, and if you don't, it will be probably be over by the time you google it anyway, so don't bother). As my poet friend Rebecca said when she saw this photo, "A true world shaper, that one. It's in the eyes."