Let me say something nice about August.

I am a Leo, after all.

August is great for SUNFLOWERS.

And this year, the weather turned mid-month, maybe not for keeps, but wowwww is it nice to wake up to 60 degrees in the morning. (In all fairness, I sometimes wake up at 5 a.m.) This autumn preview is great because we still have longer days before the equinox in September, plenty of sunlight, and gorgeous mornings and evenings. The hot days are cooler in the shade, especially with a breeze.

Let me say something nice about County Fair: it means that every August, I spend maybe 10 days without the Internet (no wifi on fairgrounds). I get zero news. I’m in such a flow state that I maybe cannot experience FOMO, but just in case, I cannot see my friends taking beach selfies, or writers/academics visiting Europe, or friends of friends relaxing poolside. I see none of it! (Though I celebrate you relaxing! I only mean that I don’t have a means to compare. I must be present in my own life, in a radical way. I don’t dream of being elsewhere for those 10 demanding days.)

My dreams grow more vivid when I am offline. Y’all, the Internet hurts my brain! Yes, I am typing this on the Internet and I appreciate the connection, and book recs, and chances to learn online. I can experience both things: the Internet helping me, the Internet stressing me out.

Truly, I have a million nice things to say about my job and County Fair (more of them come to mind the longer Fair is over). But a phenomenon I forget that I experience until the first week after Fair and my brain recovers is: I get a burst of creative inspiration that sometimes feels like an ecstatic state after a few weeks of hard physical labor outdoors, offline, in August.

Last year, during the week post-Fair, I contrived a night of furious writing out of a day on the road picking up teaching supplies paid for by grant funds, and then crashing in North Jersey overnight before teaching the next day. I plotted a g.d. novel on the road and in that hotel. Simply because I was at last indoors, in air conditioning, after a wild week or more with no scrolling, no ads, no red light notifications delivering dopamine via social media.

So this year, I took a weekend away, by myself, on a self-directed writer’s retreat. My dreams stay SO VIVID!

When the sun woke me up at 6 a.m., it was 61 degrees outside.

I called this “my vacation from driving.” Stayed at the quaintest b&b with truly gourmet breakfast, wrote and wrote and edited and reread and rewrote, took a long walk around the historic district, then landed in the gastropub around the corner from where I stayed, for dinner.

And I wasn’t going to go to the Old Tyme Peach Festival, because wasn’t I recovering from helping to run a cultural exhibition event outdoors with lots of vendors? But also, I didn’t have to be in charge of anything, I could just enjoy.

Also, peaches:

Thank you August for delicious ripe sweet juicy peaches.

And local history exhibits! These are available year-round but the peach-themed local history is so appreciated this month. This has been a big industry for Delaware, with its ties to Slavery, and plantations, and sharecropping also being remembered by Middletown, DE. Even or especially because it should make white people uncomfortable:

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I do want to note, because it feels important, that this is my first solo trip since I got married. My partner and I are people who don’t find this to be a big deal, not even worth a mention, really. (Because I got to choose who to marry? And I am attracted to a person with similar values? Why would I end up with someone who doesn’t value their own and their partner’s independence??)

But, uhhh, how people react to me taking 48 hours on a solo trip while also being married tells a whole lot about them, let’s say.

Throughout my 20s, a lot of folks really wanted me to know that my Days Were Numbered, that especially as a woman my time belonged to other people, and to be a functional member of society I needed a man to chain me to an oven STAT. That in my future I’d never be allowed to leave the house. That an overnight without my future-spouse would be illegal?

Or something like that. I can’t say I listened closely or ever believed this script. Because I know who I am and what I need to feel sane or even happy. I make what I need known to my spouse! Who respects my needs! And also has needs, including being out of the house without me, interests I don’t share, and alone time!!

I don’t care about those naysayers, in truth. I’m more interested in reassuring young people that there isn’t a blueprint (or a noose) that Everyone Must Follow (or Wear) that is coming for you, too. I also rather like talking to young people and folks of every age who need a lot of down time, and give themselves this time even though other might try to make them feel bad about it. Who refuse to accept that time is an indulgence they do not deserve or that No Adults Get Free Time Or Rest. I like talking to them about how we all learn in time to ignore the weird, gendered, classist, entitled takes we encounter in the wild. I like talking to other people who defy and resist. I like celebrating the rest and creativity and self-directed time of others. Tell me how you ignore the bullshit, tell me how you keep your soul alive.

I like that August is also the time I claim radical space for rest. The work burns me out, reliably. But I don’t stay burned, I heal.

Alas, the crushing grind of adulthood comes for us all. This week: car in autobody for mirror repair, and rescheduled jury duty.

But in-between the obligations and duties and paid work and chores, I took this retreat. And that matters.