My hair is wet from a brief plunge into a chilled Atlantic where my feet, hands, and brain hurt every duck dive under the waves.
Hi, I’m Jonathan McCallum (insert Kevin Arnold’s voice or actually Daniel Stern’s comforting toned narration). I don’t really watch The Wonder Years much these days, I do however think of how within 3 seconds of Joe Cocker’s voice and seeing Kevin’s smile I’m transported into a nostalgic rush of memories. Does that happen to you also? I don’t think I’ll get tired of how much music and story take us back in time.
How do I write as I speak? I tend to speak a lot on camera and mostly about a mix of significant and insignificant topics.
(some of my photos from this week)
I write as I walk, a little bouncy and possibly a bit awkward because of my height where my arms fly around me like windmill blades when I’m in a hurry, yet it gets me from place to place, I do feel very self-conscious words on a page, you can decide if I’m amicable in person if we have a cider or deep dish pizza together one day.
I mentioned in my substack intro about cider, yet really what I meant was sweet french cider from Normandy or Brittany, it is inexpensive (about 2 euros a bottle) and we live near the border between Spain and France so whenever I’m across the frontier into St Jean de Luz (Donibane in Basque) I will try to lug home as much of that liquid gold as possible.
The alcohol content is lower at around 2 percent which is nice. On the effervescent sparkling topic, I must confess I love apple-based drinks, and my local go-to is (don’t label me) the peculiar zero-alcohol apple beer (kind of sounds like something from the Leaky Cauldron).
In the linked version of this post, you can see my video where I open a cider :(Nice it works)
Speaking of video, I saw a TikTok or Youtube short (yeah I know scrolling videos is worse than rust sprinkled on your brain while crossing a highway with a blindfold) anyway I create nothing-special videos and take average photos that hopefully won’t oxidize your neurons
Anyhow, I heard this tiktok or youtube person say it is better to talk (or write) about stuff you have done rather than things you are working on… What do you think about that? The rationale was that people talk a lot about “I’m gonna do this or that…”
Here is one thing I have achieved that I’m incredibly proud of:
I like to sing out in the surf, not loudly, sometimes just a hum and often a shout especially after a barrel or long ride… sometimes I feel too elated (in the momentary sense ) to explain it…
If I could paint it all into a word picture I’d say it as:
“That thrill of speed and motion flowing on top of a wave in the afternoon peachy light dance with the foamy salty ocean cresting waves”
Do you have a go-to activity like walking at dawn up a local hill? Or dancing in the rain?
Let me know in the comments (I’m making this sound like Youtube sorry).
I’m off to cook some dinner.
Agur lagunak (Bye friends / Basque language)
Jonathan
(Nice the video link works)
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