Despite having checked out with my diploma many years ago there are three little words that still cause low level panic: “Back to School.” Time to put shoes back on, set your alarm 5 days a week, find that hairbrush, go back indoors and generally become a serious individual. Not that I actually did most of that regardless of whether school was in session, but those connotations still persist.
I admit it, I’m a seasonist. I have a strong and unreasonable bias towards summer. This year I promised myself that I won’t bemoan the change of season. Admittedly, it helps that I’m now based in Southern California, a place where the sun shines year ‘round, but I’m welcoming Fall and I am determined to welcome Winter just behind it. Each season has its own gifts and I’m going to savor them all, dammit.
This month’s round-up includes plenty of cold weather adventures to help you (and by that I mean me) start looking forward to cool clime explorations. Because there’s no point in rushing towards summer. Come to think of it, there’s not much point in rushing in general. As Aristotle said, “In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.” He wasn’t seasonist about it.
Might as well enjoy the view...
In Swellness,
Laura
Fleeing To The Mountains, New York Times
Vast, spectacular, and publicly owned, is America’s vast wilderness what makes it great? Are the forests and mountains the great equalizers of our hierarchical society? That’s exactly what this writer makes the case for, and hey, we don’t blame him. Take a walk down the Pacific Crest Trail at the link above and decide for yourself.
Cold Water Surfing On Britain’s Industrial Coast, Nowness
Steel mills, chemical refineries, and...surfing? Yup, that’s right. On Britain’s Northeastern coast smokestack surfer dudes layer themselves in 6mm thick neoprene to dive into the chilling, and legendary, winter swells. It’s an unexpected sight, but an amazing one nonetheless. See these guys in action at the link up top.
‘The Adventure Of A Skier’ by Italo Calvino, New Yorker
“The air was so clear that the boy in the green goggles could divine in the snow the dense network of ski tracks, straight and oblique, of abrasions, mounds, holes, and pole marks, and it seemed to him that there, in the shapeless jumble of life, was hidden a secret line, a harmony, traceable only to the sky-blue girl, and this was the miracle of her: that at every instant in the chaos of innumerable possible movements she chose the only one that was right and clear and light and necessary, the only gesture that, among an infinity of wasted gestures, counted.”
Weekly Escape: Timelapse From Scotland And Norway, Outside
Your perfect midday distraction (you’re welcome). This time lapse, spanning the Isle of Sky, Senja, and Lofoten in Scotland and Norway, will pull you out of your seat and into rugged, untouched terrain in less than two minutes. There’s lakes, rivers, mountains, waterfalls, and tons of sky, stars and sunsets too. Tune in above.