End-of-summer mantras

That's how we get it done. Ways and ways. I am here. I am part of this. This is the fun part.

Summer shook up my morning routine, but school started last Thursday and now it’s back to regular programming. We leave the house at 7:23am. The kid scoots and I walk 1.1 miles to school, and then I roll his scooter home.

This summer, we left at 8am. He scooted and I walked .8 miles to the subway and then we rode the subway, five stops if we caught the local and two stops if we caught the express, to camp, and then I rolled his scooter home.

One day, the local and the express arrived at our station one right after the other. The local stayed and kept its doors open until the doors to the express were open and people streamed out of each train to switch to the other and one conductor leaned out the window and shouted to the other, “That’s how we get it done!” And for the rest of the summer, whenever two trains were in the station at the same time, my kid said, “That’s how we get it done.”

Some sort of lichen on a rock at Kaaterskill Falls.

Not to be cryptic, but I’m working on some big things that I can’t talk about publicly yet. Waking up ridiculously early continues to be the only way I can get writing time right now, but that’s how we get it done!

Recently my best friend Bailey she mentioned something she and her wife Jess say sometimes: “Ways and ways.” I took this to mean there are so many ways to do things, or so many ways something might shake out. There doesn’t have to be one right way — ways and ways!

I told her I’ve been using it as a mantra and she laughed and said she and Jess actually mean something different when they say it. If I understand it correctly now, they use it when someone could have done something in a respectful way but chose it do it in a rude way, or could have done something the right way but chose to do it the wrong way. (I might still be off.)

She said the way I was using “ways and ways” reminded her of this quote from The Office we used as a mantra at our old job, where we met.

“I am here. I am part of this.” This is my circus. These are my monkeys.

My mantra for a while has been: "This is the fun part.” And it is! It might feel overwhelming now, but I will look back and think these were some of the best years of my life. (And I’ll take all the mantras I can get.)

These six weeks in writing

I thought I’d be done with a draft by the end of the summer, but I’m not. That’s okay! I have an abundance of creative energy — it’s just fueling a few different things right now.

We’re still chugging along with the novel and I have hope that things are about to get a little easier, with the return of the school year routine. Plus, the Ungodly Hour Writing Club is back in September and October.

The summer break from this Substack was necessary, and I’ve decided to keep check-ins here monthly until this draft is done.

These six weeks in reading

So many good books! I finished Light Years by James Salter. I listened to Chloe Caldwell’s Trying on the way home from camp dropoffs. I read The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas in a weekend. I read Work Nights by Erica Peplin in another weekend. Now I’m nearly finished with All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews. I highly recommend all.

September event alert

I’ll be reading at Artmaggedon here in Brooklyn on September 28! I’m part of the Writing Co-Lab set, reading with Lynya Floyd, Nina Sharma, Amy Shearn, Jeanne Thornton, and Soraya Palmer and hosted by the one and only Brian Gresko. We’ll be at 1517 Ditmas Avenue from 2-2:45pm — swing by if you’re attending the festival!

Love to you.

Love,
Shayne