Hot hot hot

The summer in Korea is no joke. I mean really. Temps above 100F/37C for the last three months. 

A little relief at Jin Ha Beach

It's been a bear of a summer, and even though we're now in September, after the end of "hot summer" according to the traditional Korean calendar, we are still sweltering. 

But on the upside, there is a slight breeze with a tinge of cool air, and the sun isn't quite as high as it was. I can feel the difference, but still can't stand having anything against my skin.

Unfortunately the reality has been that I have not been outside nearly as much as I would've liked. I'm feeling a little like I do at the end of winter in Western New York: antsy to get back outside and start enjoying nature. Funny how that works, from one extreme to another.

Air Con is My Friend 

The upside of being inside in the air conditioning so much is that I've been working on my short story project more diligently. The current story, temporarily named "Snow Lanes," is about a homeless man who finds his lost love and has to impress her, somehow. I'm getting to the last third of the story now.

I also took a distance class this summer through St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry on J.R.R. Tolkien. Needless to day, there was a lot of reading for that course. I bought all the books, so I've been reading long after the class ended mid-August. In addition to a re-read of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, I've got the Simarillion (which I'd never read before) and A Tolkien Miscellany that includes several of his shorter works. I also have copies of his letters in PDF form from the class. 

Lessons from Tolkien 

Tolkien inspires me, not just because of his imagination, but because he was keenly aware that the world needs creators. The world at large needs to have lights shed on the human experience in places and ways that help the reader/receiver attain a new vision, a new understanding transcending even the murkiest, ugliest realities of our existence.

Full moon rising 

 From the class, I became more keenly aware that writing is not just a gift from God, but it is an essential part of my being, and I need to attend to it with gratitude and the intention of sharing it. It has always been my intention to share everything I've created, but somehow I get gummed up between completion of the work and the mechanisms by which the work moves into the world.

This is something that needs more light, more fire, more insistence. The heat of a Korean summer needs to be applied to my own post-creative process.