Soothe Your Summer Soul with a Quirky Side-Quest

Fat Tomato Summer - vol. 001

“How do we know we’re alive?”

Elbows deep in kitchen sink suds, I scrambled first for a towel, then for my phone perched on the windowsill. Rewind, rewind. I listened to former Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s profound question two more times.

Welcome to Fat Tomato Summer ‘26 (FTS for short) - our annual summer series where we do our best to experience a season of rest and adventure in the most honest, accessible way. When I started planning over a month ago, all I knew was I wanted to explore what’s real. But I could feel the stirring, that buzzing sensation that lets me know I’m onto something.

Watching helplessly as AI data centers popped up overnight brought some urgency. Ms. Limón’s poet eyes helped, as did perpetually cold-and-sad-boy, Noah Kahan.

“We never do anything real, we just talk about it.”

End of August, Noah Kahan

As Noah suggests, we can spend our summer talking about dancing or we can throw our heads back and surrender to the music. Life will continue to happen either way. The real question is, how do we want to spend the parts of our summer we can actually control?

First, in order to know we’re alive, we have to take stock. The past two weeks have kicked my family in the face. Disrespectfully. (We’re going to be fine. Cory and I have been taking turns texting that exact line to each other.) It’s normal stuff, but a lot of it, all at once - piles of anxiety and hard questions.

I’m coming out of a fun, draining book launch. I’m leaving winter behind and entering my favorite season with my growing-up guys (and their growing-up problems) and a daughter who now lives hundreds of miles away.

I’m spent, pallid, slightly over-exposed, and perhaps more fragile than usual.

There’s no summer air sweet enough to fix any of this.

I’m also hellbent on carving out heavy goodness wherever I’m able.

Last Saturday, I launched a seasonal side-quest - visiting as many Ouizi murals as possible. (Most of them are clustered across Michigan. Happy birthday to me! ) Cory and I set out for a quick trip to Jackson, MI, a city we’d never heard of. Rather than buying coffee and pastries for the two-hour drive, we brought to-go mugs and I baked blackberry muffins. Still special and fun, but scrappier.

Cory humored my deep exposition of Noah Kahan’s Great Divide album. (OBSESSED!) And when I learned Jackson is the home of the coney dog, my lunch order was a no-brainer. (It was also a stop on the Underground Railroad.) Jackson is a small, diverse city with murals spread throughout its downtown. It oozed color and breathed art. Heaven! (Petition to get more cities to embrace murals??) A sprawling kids basketball tournament only added to the vibrance.

As we were getting ready to head home, I realized there was a second Ouizi mural somewhere in downtown Jackson. Cory dropped me off at a cross-street and I back-tracked through a maze of lawn chairs and thwacking basketballs that led me to this eye-popper:

Ta-da! The best one, nearly lost to human error.

“I want to focus on what’s real.”

“How do we know we’re alive?”

Two skinny sentences aiming twin arrows at the heart of the matter.

In an increasingly virtual world, we’re craving what’s real, like fresh paint layered over a city trying hard not to fade away. Give us an analog summer. A 90’s summer. A Fat Tomato summer.¹

Our bodies need wind in our faces and sunshine in our eyes. Our hearts need to quicken and break. Our minds need to rest and flow and spin delicious webs. Our nervous systems need to heal.

That’s how we know we’re alive.

You probably don’t have a favorite muralist. But maybe you’re into breweries, live music, art installations, indie bookstores, quirky coffee shops, thrift stores, a particular type of cuisine, minor league baseball, gardens, comic books, car shows, quilting, jazz, history… Endless side-quest possibilities!

Here are two questions as summer begins:

What do you love?

What’s one little way you could make it real?²

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This first edition of Fat Tomato Summer ‘26 is free for everyone! If you’d like to continue to receive the weekly series through June/July, become a paid subscriber. (The 25% off sale is still running! Get it all for less than $8.)

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The Rest of the Story

the way I want to live here…

Weights:

• Homeowner’s insurance

• Car insurance

• Before/After pics of the White House

Counterweights:

• A $1.49 book sale with my nephew - I bought 12

• First dinner on the patio

• My friend Jenny, who said, “You never start at a deficit with me. I’m thrilled to have you in my life. Anything beyond that is a bonus.” (I teared up.)

Scents of the Week:

• The lilacs’ last gasp

• Charcoal grill smoke

Flavors of the Week:

• Grilled chicken with this marinade

• Strawberry rhubarb crumble

• Trader Joe’s beef bulgogi (We mixed original and meatless versions!)

A Final Word from My Week

“When we miss it, it really does pass us by. Tomorrow presents another opportunity for awareness, but it’s never an opportunity for the same awareness.”

The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

1. Speaking of what is and isn’t real - for as long as I’ve been writing books, I’ve been painfully aware that my writing voice and its rhythm loops me again and again back into triplicates. Lists of three. 3/4 time. Maybe I’ve lost the plot… Incidentally, I keep running into warnings that sets of three are warning signs of AI writing. Earlier this spring, I joined a class action lawsuit for authors whose published works were used - without consent - to train AI. So, I guess what I’m saying is, am I the problem? The root? The tell? ;)

2. It’s not lost on me that now isn’t the most economical time for an impromptu road trip. This is a reminder that side quests can be local or even a DIY, at-home experience. Do what’s sustainable for your right-now life!