Summer 2022 Review

Have you ever had a summer so packed with events and life changes and overall intensity that you feel like if you don’t do something, it’ll all just fade into a blur? I just did. These last four months have easily been the craziest four months of our marriage, and arguably our individual lives — and that includes planning two weddings in two different stages of the pandemic!

Since May, Austin traded his university post-doctoral post in our remote college town for that of a scientist with a research institution. Our weekend trips to the Adirondacks are now trips to the ocean or hiking adventures in New Hampshire. In May we learned that we were pregnant, but six weeks later we lost the pregnancy in a physically and emotionally traumatic fashion. We visited both Iceland and Newfoundland. Amid it all, the summer went by in a flash of ocean waves, air travel, and lobster rolls. Somehow the summer has already come and gone, and if I’m not careful, I worry that I’ll forget the best parts of it, given just how fast it flew by. To that end, I wanted to share five of my favorite things I’ve experienced this summer — five things that I think you might enjoy too…

Travel: St. Johns, Newfoundland

Towards the end of July, my husband and I packed our bags, drove through the worst downpour I’ve ever seen (seriously, I think we honest to goodness cheated death), and boarded a plane bound for St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. Newfoundland feels like one of those hidden gems in the world, boasting a rugged coastal landscape that feels like a cross between Alaska and Iceland, filled with whales, puffins, and moose. Downtown St. Johns is bright, filled with “jellybean houses,” row houses in every color of the rainbow, and the city center is a walkable district of harbor adjacent restaurants, pubs, and shops. From our (pink!) row house in downtown St. Johns, we easily accessed several hikes along the coastline and along the East Coast Trail, a coastal trail walk spanning about 130 kilometers in total and running right through St. Johns. My favorite hike took us near Signal Hill, a fort along the cliffs, to the historic fishing village of Quidi Vidi. One morning we drove about 20 minutes through the predawn darkness to Cape Spear, a lighthouse at the easternmost point of North America, to watch the first rays of the sunrise grace the continent. On a different day, we drove a bit further afield to Elliston, a fishing village about three hours from St. Johns, where we walked up to a small point of land where puffins happily flocked and wandered about, completely unafraid of the handful of tourists and wildlife photographers less than three feet away from them. Since we were there to visit my brother who is in grad school at Memorial University, we went with them to a pub for a “session,” where a group of folk musicians gathered in a cross between a dive bar and an Irish pub to play folk music together long into the night. An unexpected delight was the Memorial University Botanical Gardens — we spent an evening wandering through paths of brightly colored flowers and trees, all chosen to flourish in the cold Newfoundland climate. Of course, we took a whale and puffin watching tour where a humpback whale played with our boat, swimming back and forth beneath us under the glistening seas, as we headed for Gull Island, where nearly half a million puffins breed. In short, this remote, northern world that feels more like an Irish settlement than it feels English, French, or Canadian is one that should be on more travel blogs and bucket lists, whether for the hiking, the puffins, or the friendliest people you’ll ever meet.

TV: The Chosen

This deserves a post of its own (don’t worry, I have one drafted in Google docs), but I couldn’t give a review of the best parts of my summer without acknowledging the Loaves and Fishes production (yeah, I get that it sounds really cheesy but bare with me) The Chosen, a dramatization of the Gospels. When I first heard of The Chosen earlier this year, it was parting seas in all the expected evangelical circles. In my experience, most Christian media wasn’t good — it was low budget or hit you way too hard over the head again and again with its boiled-down message. As the weeks went by, I was surprised to hear other parts of the Christian world began to recommend The Chosen. Protestants and Catholics, young and old, liturgical and non-denominational. Everyone was talking about The Chosen, and I knew that I needed to give it a chance. For months it was on my ‘to be watched’ list, and this summer we finally did — and I was shocked. For starters, it is a visual masterpiece, with great attention to historic detail in its casting, costumes, and sets. The characters drew me from the first episode, in their flawed natures and unique personalities. Most surprising of all was that its message, while powerful, was also subtle. The writers chose to demonstrate the power of faith and the nature of Christ as King, and Healer through the stories of the disciples, a rag-tag crew of deeply flawed and broken men and women who over the course of the show begin to transform. Night after night we tucked into the couch with our two rambunctious kittens to watch Simon (Peter) struggle with his pride and bitterness, Matthew accept his sin, and Mary face her past, through the tender ministry of their rabbi, the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. Season three can’t arrive soon enough.

Activity: Beach Picnics

Now that we live about 25 minutes away from the coast, I find an excuse to go every chance I can get. Second anniversary? Let’s get fancy cheeses and snacks and have a picnic on the beach. Parents in town? Let’s make turkey sandwiches and have a picnic on the beach. In-laws in town? Let’s make Caprese sandwiches and have a picnic on the beach. In a dinner rut? You got it, let’s pack up that leftover hummus and vegetables and have a picnic on the beach. The sunsets along the ocean here are a beautiful wash of cotton candy blues, pinks, and lavenders. I’ll take my camera and capture the waves as they crash against the sand, leaving bits of foam behind, as Austin sits on the beach looking for shorebirds with his binoculars. I’ll swim too, of course. I grew up spending time every summer with friends who live in York, ME, so the cold New England ocean is an old friend. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to live along this ocean, with its nautical New England houses, penny candy and ice cream shops, coastal walks, and, of course, those cotton candy sunsets. Each time we pack up that picnic basket with sandwiches and snacks or I don my swimsuit, I’m reminded of this literal dream come true that I am living.

Books: A Curious Faith by Lore Wilbert

Given all the craziness from May onward, I didn’t do much reading. Once we moved and settled in, however, I started to pick up my old rituals again, like reading and morning devotions, and I started with A Curious Faith. I am not exaggerating when I say that A Curious Faith has been one of my most anticipated reads of the year. Lore Wilbert and her husband wandered into our lives last year as they started attending my father’s church, only to learn that he would be moving to Dallas, Texas. We reconnected with them this spring as a group of us who felt unsupported by the local churches, for one reason or another, gathered together on Sundays to pray through a liturgy and pray for each other in one of the most open and effusive prayer groups I have ever encountered. As I got to know her, I deeply respected her love for Jesus, her hospitality, and her way with words; her book surely would be a good one. But that doesn’t even come close to covering it. A Curious Faith is a deeply personal reflection on how intrinsic questions and curiosity are to faith. She reminded me how God wants our questions, and through our doubts we discover the nature of God even most deeply than before. It inspired me to think about those questions that God is asking me, particularly her chapter about place and healing, where Lore reflects on the question Jesus asks of the paralytic man, “Do you want to be well?” After the months that we’d had, filled with life changes and deep loss, on top of the tumult of the last two plus years, that question sat with me. I wrestled with it, as I realized that God was asking those very words of me. That’s what A Curious Faith does best; reassures you to ask the questions that you have of God, and illuminates the questions that God is asking you.

Life Change: Adopting Kittens

We’ve been talking about adopting a (tuxedo) cat and naming it Buckets since before we were engaged, but kept putting off adopting a cat for some undefined future. First, we wanted to wait until we had moved to an area we wanted to live in long term, then once we knew were moving we thought we’d put it off until after the baby arrived. But then we learned our baby wouldn’t arrive. After we moved, and our hearts healed a little, we decided it was time to stop putting off kitty adoption. We didn’t adopt our cats as a replacement for the child we lost, but rather as something we’d been wanting to do for a long time that would bring us joy. So in August we drove to a shelter in Manchester, NH, and adopted a pair of bonded four-month-old kittens. Our lives have not been the same since. Buckets and Mopsy have forced us to be creative with where we keep our plants and we are in a constant battle to keep them off the table, but it’s worth it for all the hours of fun we have playing with them and cuddling them. Every time we enter our apartment, there are now two small faces meowing at us to welcome us home and every morning those same faces are sticking their noses in our faces reminding us that it’s breakfast time. They follow us around the apartment, sitting on our laps as we read or watch TV, getting underfoot in the kitchen, and chasing toy mice, felt balls, and any small objects of ours that they’ve absconded with through our 1300-square-foot loft apartment. In short, our furry friends have been a constant source of joy and entertainment, and one of the best decisions we’ve made all summer.

Honorable Mentions:

Visiting Iceland:
- This would have made the list if it wasn’t already on everyone’s bucket or travel list already. It’s an incredible, otherworldly landscape, filled with extraordinary waterfalls, epic hiking, and mouthwatering fish. Our week there barely scratched the surface and I’d go back in a heartbeat. I definitely recommend traveling with a group of good friends — makes for memories to last a lifetime!
Yellow Furniture:
- Our new apartment is significantly larger than our previous one, so we needed a few new pieces of furniture to fill it out. My favorite is a mustard yellow chair from IKEA that I absolutely adore and sit in every morning for my devotions time. It is frankly impossible to be in a bad mood while sitting in it. 10/10 recommend yellow furniture for everyone now.
Cape Cod
- Somehow I’ve lived my entire life in the Northeast and never visited Cape Cod, at least not until now. My best friend from my toddler years, his fiancé, and his parents (we actually attend their church now) live about 30 minutes away from us now, and they invited us to join them for a day on the Cape, where we boated out to island beach, went swimming, and boated around the bay encountering a pod of seals.
Baths
- Baths were at the top of my wishlist for our new apartment, and as luck would have it, our new place has one! Simply sitting in the bath and reading a book is one of the most relaxing ways to spend an evening, even if my cat looks at me like he’s concerned for my mortal soul while I do so.