It’s June, and if you’ve ever seen the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, you know what song will be stuck in this resident theatre kid’s head for approximately 30 days. Aside from this musical theatre earworm, June is Pride Month, honoring LGBTQ culture: its challenges, triumphs, and the progress yet to come. Whether you identify as part of the community or are just… well, a human being believing in human rights, Pride is a celebration, a remembrance, and a riot all at once.

Whether you are jetting out of town for Memorial Day weekend or staying put, summer and vacation are in the air. In New Jersey, it’s the opening of the Jersey Shore with families flocking to the beach with their umbrellas and beach chairs. Others might be planning hikes or time on a lake. Even those staying put might be taking advantage of the longer weekend for a staycation.

There’s something in the air, and it’s making me slow down. It’s not just my normal fatigue from treatment, or the sunshine lulling me into a sleepy state of mind. It’s not just capitalism or an absurd pollen count either. I think I’m being challenged in a big way to slow down. There’s something about being on the precipice of summer here on the East Coast that nudges me to cut my to-do list in half, go easy on the expectations I level against myself. All of today’s suggestions come from a place of pause, and I invite you to join me on that quest.

The unofficial poet laureate of People With Feelings, Mary Oliver, has a poem that contains the lines: “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” Grief is a complicated thing. You don’t ever really stop grieving the things you’ve lost, you just move to a different place with them. Some days seem more straightforward than others, others your sadness and anger and longing can fill you from your head to your toes. This weekend, I have suggestions about comfort: comfort food, mental health, and a making a small difference with citrus.

Dearest friends, it is my birthday today. I was born on a Friday some time ago now, which makes me loving and giving, according to that old nursery rhyme – no big deal. Like many folks after a cancer diagnosis, birthdays bring a complicated feeling. I’ve now spent five birthdays in the grip of cancer treatment, and that feels kind of depressing. But I’m also here, celebrating another birthday, unlike many of my peers- so it feels worth celebrating, perhaps even more so than before.

We wrapped up our birthday month at Cactus Cancer Society last night with our Birthday Bash. If you’ve never been to one of our celebratory events, let me tell you – you have to make it to the next one. We played games, raised more money toward our goal, and danced like there was no tomorrow. There are a lot of things I love about our community, but the fact that we know how to have a great time is my favorite. 

Here’s some easy ways to keep the fun going into the easy, breezy vibe going into the weekend.

It’s time for me to come clean: spring is not my favorite season. Summer is my favorite and I wait all year for the warm evenings when I can watch the fireflies, sit outside watching the sun go down at 8 PM, and everything feels like it is holding a magical, promise-filled potential. And I don’t even have allergies to complain about! Still, this week has been so lovely near me. No rain in sight (a bit of a loss since I threw down some grass seed on my backyard’s bald patches), warm during the day, but still cool enough at night to cozy up. Spring, you may be winning me over yet.

I was able to spend some time with one of my favorite kids today, my former student I’ll call Clara. I taught Clara from preschool until the end of elementary school. She lives around the corner from me, and I’m also friends with her mom, so we’ve stayed a part of each other’s lives even as she’s now almost through 8th grade. Clara used to be quiet and a bit reserved in class, but in the past few years, has totally come into her own. She’s laid back, confident, and finds joy in the little things and honestly, I’m in my thirties, and these traits are still goals. The kids, as they say, are alright. Here are some little things that I think embody the notions of ease, confidence, and joy for your weekend.

If the past few years and a cancer diagnosis have taught me anything, the simple things are really the big things. There are too many to count: getting to sit outside for a moment between meetings, making your destination just in time for the thunderstorm. A sale on your favorite pint of ice cream, making silly jokes with a friend over text and laughing until your cheeks hurt. When the big stuff is precarious, the little stuff is even more important – and that’s what today’s post is all about.

A moment of vulnerability: I struggle with what to write here many weeks, folks. I never want to seem oblivious to the suffering of the world, and there’s been so much of that to go around of late. I don’t want to be that equivalent by pretending the world is fine, thank you very much, because it’s not. (I recall, shuddering, that Mario Batali once responded to a sexual assault allegation claim in an email that ended with a cinnamon roll recipe. Talk about being totally out of touch.) What’s the solution, I wonder? After cancer, after the first whispers of COVID, after gun safety laws fail to be adopted by a country with endless mass shootings – why not just eat tasteless mush, see only darkness, and do nothing other than accept bitterness as our sole emotion?