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Blergh. The ebb and flow of the season hit hard this week. I believe in DC they call this 3rd Spring or 4th Winter or some other such nonsense. I rode 30 miles in shorts and a T-shirt on Saturday; and today it is hailing. I just finished Katherine May’s book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, which was a good reminder for me to (try to) “Embrace your winter.”
By winter, she means not just the cold season, but "a fallow period in life when you're cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider.
May writes about how different cultures and species handle winter, from saunas, lagoons, and cold water swimming to dormouse hibernation and the cold weather survival tactics of bees. But she also writes about using necessary downtimes, embracing the quiet, and respecting the dark - for without it there’d be no light.
One thing I read this week that I haven’t stopped thinking about is Eli Saslow’s story about a couple in rural Montana who have lived for 60 years with a nuclear missile as their closest neighbor.
The best thing on Instagram is DC9, a new baby eagle at the National Arboretum.
What’s this about eagles? Birds Aren’t Real.
A couple of people wrote me about the link I posted last week about the NYPL making banned books free, and rightfully so. I get it was only 4 books. It definitely looked like a PR-stunt. Only 4?! And you’re obviously hungry for more. Project Gutenberg has a bunch of banned or challenged books from the American Library Association and from Anne Haight’s list that you can download for free for most e-readers. And if you’re wondering why books like To Kill A Mockingbird (racial injustice! sexual themes!) and the Harry Potter series (anti-religious witchcraft! the occult!!) get put on the lists, start here. Otherwise, there are old-school ways… like printing this list out, putting your library card to good use, and seeing how many you can get to.
Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid