A Month of Good Hiking and Good Reading

Hi, everyone!

I hope you enjoy reading about these things that caught my attention.

• This was the view during a hike with my husband around Green and Round Lakes at Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville, NY. Both lakes are meromictic, which means in the fall there is an incomplete turnover of surface and bottom waters, so they have a high potential for evidence of ancient plant and animal life. I thought the ancient-looking roots of this tree backdropped by the brilliant green of the lake was pretty spectacular.
• I recommend Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies. I got some good chuckles when I read her essay called "Forgiveness." She writes about her feelings of resentment and competitiveness toward the mother of one of her son Sam’s classmates:

"I smiled back at her. I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish." —page 131

"I also don't push Sam to read. There wasn't much pressure for anyone to read in first grade, but by second grade, it was apparently critical to national security that your kid be reading." —page 132

• I keep returning to this quote from Yashvardhan Jain that I came across on Substack the other day: "Need more people in my feed who are the opposite of hustle and growth and 10x-ing everything. I need people that are reading slowly, writing slowly, growing slowly." I find myself wanting more of that too.
• It reminded me of another quote I came across, this one from Ryan Holiday: "I don’t read fast, I read a lot. Reading isn’t a race. It’s your time with some of the smartest (or at least different) people who’ve ever lived. This is not something to be rushed through, but enjoyed, savored and done deliberately." Instead of hurrying through and 10x-ing the number of books I've read, I want to make notes of the details and connect the dots. And avoid the need to finish books only because I started them; there are too many great books to get to.
• My family ate dinner at a favorite local spot called Symeon's Greek Restaurant. The host sat us in a corner where we had never been before, where this framed original menu from 1973 hung above us. I got a kick out of reading the meal selection and prices.

Till next time!

—Melody 💟

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