Foggybottom Press

title: The Summer

creator: LogPoes

date: Summer 2011

pages: 28

web: logpoesshop.etsy.com
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Essentially travelogue excerpts composed from a personal journal kept during a 6-week summer stay in California. In the summer of 2011, after a string of unfortunate personal events, LogPoes decided to leave the Netherlands and head to California for an extended stay at the home of two people she’d never met before. The Summer is selected entries and photos from that time.

The writing is like what you’d find in a personal journal, with expressions and reactions at times on the superlative as she shares emotions, new sights, and observations. The articles aren’t about an endless summer in the California sun; they’re tinged with self-reflection, anger, and disappointment as she tries to get away from the culmination of things up until now that had happened to her back home. But as a lot of us find out, no matter how many miles we cover, we can’t ever physically run from internal turmoil. And so LogPoes’ entries of cultural novelty and everyday events while in California are intermixed with her reflections on the frustrations prior to this escape.

Most of us know how difficult it is to get away from our problems and will find the soul-searching relatable. And I bet an even greater number of us wish we had the gall to throw some things in a suitcase and set off somewhere far away during such times. In that sense, reading The Summer can serve as somewhat of a vicarious journey while still being familiar at the core.

In the end, I think California was the cathartic journey LP had hoped it would be. Wherein she found a good place to reflect, laze on the porch, meet some never-before-met online pals, uncover the truth behind previously thought to be American myths (like Mountain Dew and Trapper Keepers, which are apparently non-existent in the Netherlands?), and, most importantly, realize that endless summer that she was looking for.

p.s. A few cats are met along the way, some of which are introduced through a collage of candid portraits.

sipping: Sprite
nibbling: garlic knots