We almost had a thunderstorm last night. Almost. I sat in my hammock chair in the woods, enjoying the dimming light, the distant rumbles, ready to go inside if anything got close. At this elevation, we are sometimes inside the thunderstorms in a way that’s absolutely, deliciously frightening. Last year we didn’t have any due to the drought, and this year… well, I’m hopeful. I have been tantalized.

Growing up, I was low-key obsessed with Anne Frank: Dairy of a Young Girl. Part of this was my fascination with anything related to writing, and Anne Frank was a writer. Alongside her diary entries, the book features her fairy tales and short stories. I thought about that a lot in terms of escapism, of seeing yourself through something unbearable. I mean, the utter boredom of spending years in a few tiny rooms with the same people. Hunted and hungry. Staying quiet not just to save your own life, but everyone’s.

It taught me how writing can save a person.

I’ve learned since then that her father edited her entries before publishing, which satisfied one question I’d always had: she never wrote her situation as unbearable. She complains, sure, but there’s never a sense that she might break. Which, given her age, seems like a lot of heavy lifting for her imagination.

So now, burdened with this new knowledge, I reread Anne Frank tentatively, because it’s just as important to me now as it was then that writing can save a person’s mind. That it can still see me through terrible, unbearable things.

I wonder what younger me would say if I traveled back in time and found a way to tell her that Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl was being banned from school libraries stateside. She’d know. There’d be none of this frog sitting in the pan while the water was heated up to boiling. She’d know.

If you’ve never read this book, I challenge you to read it this summer. Enjoy the innocence of Anne’s fiction, and she is a good writer, but don’t skip the diary sections, even when they start to feel oddly prescient.

EDIT: A friend pointed out that they’d read The Diary of Anne Frank, but didn’t remember any short stories and fairy tales. After a short jaunt down a rabbit hole, I discovered that my edition of the Diary has Anne Frank’s Tales from the Secret Annex included, while other editions do not. Apologies for any confusion, for I didn’t realize there were different editions on this scale. And I do recommend Tales from the Secret Annex if you haven’t read any of Anne Frank’s fiction.

I’ve been going for more and more walks to stop myself from going online and tapping into a now-constant frustration of the news cycle and what seems like deliberate intention to destroy this beloved planet at this point.

This afforded me the pleasure of seeing two blue jays, two of those raucous birdfeeder villains, in an all-out, admittedly majestic protest at the presence of a merlin. Rather than King Arthur’s magical friend, this was the bird of prey kind of merlin, who feasts on smaller birds. Screaming, insistent, and very much in danger themselves, this blue jay pair refused to tolerate the predator’s presence, swooping and herding it away. The merlin looked embarrassed that there was a witness to its retreat (me). The blue jays, for their part, escorted the merlin well out of their territory, or at least my line of sight, down past the wooded ridge.

My opinion of blue jays was much improved by the experience.

Work continues on my work-in-progress. Deliciously secret work, I’d like to add, after having to give regular updates on my last to satisfy my grant contract. I like sharing, but sometimes I think it breaks my focus.

I did have a fascinating writerly side quest this past month. Hired to play reporter at our local legion’s 100th anniversary and Canada Day celebration, I was privileged to be a part of an intimate audience while family members recounted their father’s and uncle’s experiences in WWII. Better still, I was there because it was my job to write about this event and those experiences.

In a funny bit of serendipity, my secret work-in-progress also deals with WWII. I’m so glad I said yes to this experience.

I need to save the stories for the article, but I’ll happily share that article with you when it’s published.

Until next month, enjoy the dog days coming and I wish you all a pair of raucous blue jays to chase away the predators,