Detail Diary, Vol #21
September begins and ends again
Sept 3 - 30, 2024
Dear friend,
A year ago, I started this Detail Diary. It’s been a fruitful and grounding practice: over 300 entries and 20 volumes. I love the way my entries have traced my daily commutes and arboretum walks and sometimes drawn me off those paths. Leaves, creatures, sky, colors, words. Starting the year over, it’s time to start retracing the seasons I’ve documented here.
Here’s where it all began:
Detail Diary, Vol #1
I want to tell you about something. A few weeks ago I had a little lightbulb-thunderbolt moment that got me so excited I thought about it all day. It started with my recent water-testing of Substack Notes. Well, really, it started with my lapsed practice of writing down sensory details every day, first during the early days of pandemic lockdowns and on …
September was a bit of a weird month for me this year; I came home from a stunning trip to the Swiss Alps sick with a lingering virus, and meanwhile had a big job interview to prepare for at the end of the month. I still managed to share details most days, including a sick day or two when stepping out of the house was really just what I needed. (My Substack was quiet otherwise, and having survived that whopping deadline, I hope to now get back to my usual deep-dive posts into the places around me and nifty plant stuff.)
Still, September was good to us. Gentle blending of summer into autumn, with rain and golden light and the first flagging of chlorophyll. In Utah, to which I had to fly for the second time in as many months for my job interview1, the mountains were festooned with flaming autumn, ahead of the Grenoble schedule.
Read on for the details.
Here is your usual reminder that this post is best viewed on the web or in the Substack app. (From email, click on the title of the post or “Read in app.”) Clicking on a Note will also take you to the browser/app to see its full text and additional photos. (If you’re in email and only see one, chances are there are more.)
For an introduction to my Detail Diary, see here, or peruse past volumes.
This calendar introduced me to the exquisite work of Konan Tanigami (1879-1928). Have you heard of him?
This sanctuary visit reminded me of what I wrote there last October:
“And farther in, find the tall yellow-green grove, presided over by the plane tree, blessed by a red squirrel and the last amber shimmers of sun, fadingly intimate, chapel of dusk.”
Autumn is in the verges…
A quick journey back to Utah, starting with the train from Grenoble to the Lyon airport
(Here’s a post about the Vercors massif)
The job interview went well, I think! I won’t know the results for a few months; life in Grenoble will continue for a while yet.
Thank you for sharing these, I really do appreciate them, even when I don't have time to comment I love them still.
I shall keep my fingers crossed for the big interview, and that makes me realise we should certainly try to meet up at some point, I have no idea where the last year has gone, to be honest!
I hope you are over the virus now, too?
I'm so glad I saved this for the weekend and took the time to go back and read your first Substack post. I did not realize that you started out with a very clear concept of how you were going to use Notes -- one you've stuck with admirably -- and only later started your newsletter. Congratulations on your first year of Substack -- you're certainly doing a lovely job!
Best wishes for the job interview, as well.