Sundays are easily the most peaceful day of the week and the last Sunday of the month brings a certain comfort tenfold the rest. In this bubble of serenity, I lie in tonight, I look back on the month of July, the month I experienced life. July 1st kissed me awake in an Airbnb nuzzled in the farmland between the mountains and the sea of Washington State. Here I felt that same peace that always comes with my monthly tradition of reflecting on and anticipating my life all while: drinking my morning coffee outside with the host's dog while the mountains were still sleeping under the early cloud cover, before exploring the secrets of the foreign landscapes during the day, and retiring back to the house in the evening after a fresh salmon dinner to discuss literature with our new friends. July seemed to be one big search for inner peace, but in retrospect, it was clinging onto my skin wherever I went, even though the whole time I was stressing about trying to be more mindful.
June's Sacred Sunday asked for July to be fulfilling and tomorrow I will be welcoming August with open arms instead of the usual begrudging foot drags because my summer has been even more fulfilled than imagined. This August is the end of a decade, but the start of an age, if you will so kindly appreciate my subtle dropping of Taylor Swift lyrics, so here's to a month of soaking up life as I have known it and writing my last Sacred Sunday at home for quite some time. This whole summer has been a weird in-between knowing that I am not in high school anymore but I have yet to start college, so now its bittersweetness becomes stronger with every day. I tie bows as I only have twenty-five days left to decide what to take with me into the next chapter, eleven more shifts at work, and who knows how many more slow mornings reading out on the back deck, but there are certain strings I refuse to tie. I will not tie the strings leading me home to the town that fosters the woods I escape to when I need to clear my head, my best friend who wishes more than life that she too was leaving for college already, and the family that will cling onto distance making the heart grow fonder because if I did, it would be easier to hang it all up like the old school dance dresses still calling the back of my closet home.
Despite the soul-searching, traveling, spontaneity, and much-needed family time this month, I have still felt uninspired. I sat on the back deck yesterday with two books, my journal, laptop, and a pen trying to come up with something to encapsulate my life into some sort of written worth, but instead, I got up and put a movie on. Being creative is the world's most unpredictable rollercoaster as poems, short stories, and blog posts can go from spilling out like a waterfall after a rainstorm to being stranded in the flats of the desert begging for the clouds to cry even the tiniest drops of inspiration. Having this Sacred Sundays routine, thankfully, is slightly pulling me out into a more temperate environment, but I think it is the door-in-the-face of being home for the longest period of time all summer but with no established routine that is throwing me off. I did finish my fifteenth book of 2022, Wuthering Heights, which already overachieves my yearly goal by three and has been the book I read in-between books for a little over a year now. I am left a little empty not having that constant anymore, but the symbolic timing of closing out that chapter (especially reading a novel that romanticizes the toxic relationship trope) right before I start a new one is perfect.
This July was as fulfilling as can be, and may this August take its time in the standstill. I feel as though I have lived a million lives this summer and now it is time to remember how it feels to walk on solid ground by getting into a routine and enjoying life at a standstill, stuck between two chapters. Thank you for tuning in to another Sacred Sunday, and as always, take the time to reflect and set intentions because introspection is the most powerful tool.
-Emma Claire