Summer Updates

A tidbit of exciting news (ahem, impending shameless plug):

Hawkmoth now has a bookish, research-minded little sister! Meet ReefsRising, my brand-spankin'-new blog, hosted by SciLogs on the Nature network.

Hawkmoth will continue on as a personal site, whereas RR will stick to strict reporting on tropical marine science. SciLogs hosts blogs on everything from South-Eastern European research to marketing to neuroscience– so check it out as a broad source for science news.



While I'm at it, here are a few more cool things on the mind lately:

1. Usefulscience– Single sentence summaries of new research on everything from creativity to fitness to parenting. Edify yourself in 5 seconds or less.

2. It's national moth week! Time to celebrate those winged nocturnal beauties. Click here for the official US website of moth-related happenings. Think naturalist-led night hikes, and bright lights projected on white sheets.
   I've got two more BIG projects in the wings, but I'll hold my tongue at the moment. Expect more exciting news in T-minus 2 weeks (?)    

Helplessness Blues

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique. Like a snowflake, distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see. And now after some thinking I’d say I’d rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery, serving something beyond me. But I don’t, I don't know what that will be. I’ll get back to you someday soon. You will see. 

-Helplessness Blues
 

Another season in transit: New York to Virginia to Massachusetts to Illinois and back again. Another season on trains and buses, nursing those helplessness blues.

This summer, the eastern US has flown by an open window, while I've sat and wondered what the future will bring. Oh I've tongued that question like an aching tooth– every touch plunging to the nerve.



But in the blue-black night, curled up against a train window, there is a tonic for that ache. I awake without my bearings, and for a moment lose myself to the night. A nameless little life hurtles across the world then– stability in motion– roots wrapped around the whole damn thing.   

Mine is a prayer to the road, whispered to the rumbling lullaby of wheels on asphalt:

Make me a leaf, swept ever downriver.