Sunshine and Books.

It's officially been Spring for nearly a month now, but here in Maine it just started feeling like it within the past week or two. Beautiful, sunny days have arrived. Which means occasionally walking home from work, eating ice cream outside without freezing, and things starting to grow from the ground.

For me, Spring also means feeling like a human being again. It always surprises me how much more I feel like doing when the sun wakes me up in the morning and is still up when I get out of work at night. It's like a damn miracle. (Or it's like seasonal depression, you know, whatever.)

The past week of my life has been especially beautiful and lovely. Can I say that? I spent a considerable amount of time last weekend "spring" cleaning (honestly just regular cleaning, but I feel like I finally got my room to the place I wanted it to be for the first time since I moved back to Maine) and then went for a walk on the rail trail with much of my family when it was gloriously sunny last Sunday. I've been trying to walk home from work if it's going to be nice out (shoutout to my sister for driving my car home those days even though driving isn't really her thing- I appreciate you, Britt!) and I even wore my bright yellow shorts out to the patio at the Quarry Tap Room. I love those shorts and I was seriously SO PUMPED to be wearing them, even if I was the only person out in shorts. Who even cares? I wasn't cold so it's fine.

Today I went for a walk in Vaughan Woods (aka the woods behind my house) and it was truly lovely. I watched the water cascade down from the dam, I looked at all the flattened ferns that appeared after the snow melted, I let the sun warm my skin. It was glorious. Days and moments like that always remind me of the line "God bless the daylight / the sugary smell of springtime" from the song "We Looked Like Giants" by Death Cab for Cutie.

Anyway. As some of you may have seen on instagram, it is one of my goals for 2017 to read 50 physical books. My official Goodreads book goal is 104 (right now...I may add to my goal later, depending on my progress), but a lot of my books are consumed in audiobook format. It helps to be able to do laundry or cook or clean my room while I'm "reading" and it allows me to entertain myself a little better during some of my more mindless tasks at the office. But this year I want to consume as many (okay, almost as many) books with my eyeballs as I do with my ears. So I've been working on it. Making terrible progress at this point, but whatever.

I just finished the book "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas. It was incredible. I would like to request that anyone I know read this book. Especially if you are white. And extra especially if you don't understand the Black Lives Matter movement. The premise of the book is that the main character is a teenaged black girl who witnesses her childhood friend get shot and killed by the police. So basically, it's a fictionalized version of every white-cop-kills-unarmed-black-person story you've heard. It's the story of every person who got a "Justice for _____" hashtag. And it is a powerful look at what it means to be privileged in America today. There are also many other topics and issues covered in the book that were eye-opening to me, and probably would be for you, too.

So please, read the book. It's one of the best I've read in a long time, definitely the most worthwhile book I've read this year. If you live near me I would be more than happy to lend you my copy. If not, I have seen it for sale in every book store I've entered recently. Do yourself a favor and buy a copy and read it and then lend it to your friends who want to read it, too.

Happy Spring and happy reading, everyone!