August 1st Today is the first day of August. Sniff. July is over. I got up this morning at 6:30. I don’t know why. The dew was very thick and beautiful. All white. Now, however, the sun is out. The sky is blue. And it is going to be a beautiful day. [...]
August 1st Yesterday was not the first day of August. Today is. A free day. Bill and I tried to collaborate this morning but it didn’t work out. [...]
Aug. 3rd Actually I am not sure if today is the 3rd or not. It might be the 4th or the 5th. It really doesn’t matter. [...]
1. The poem present only in a letter Dickinson had sent to Higginson in August 1877, that Popova imagines to have been possibly written having witnessed the eclipse on September 29, 1875:
It sounded as if the streets were running— /And then—the streets stood still—/ Eclipse was all we could see at the Window/ And Awe—was all we could feel. / By and by—the boldest stole out of his Covert/ To see if Time was there/ Nature was in her Opal Apron—/ Mixing fresher Air.
2. Asaph Hall was about to give up his frustrating search for a Martian moon one August night in 1877, but his wife Angelina urged him on. He discovered Deimos (pic 1 below) the next night, and Phobos (pic 2 below) six nights after that. (x)
Joe Brainard, Dairy 1969 | Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, 1925 | Mary Oliver, August, 1993 | Vincent van Gogh, Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate), 1890 | Maria Popova, Figuring, 2019 | Ocean Vuong, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, 2016 | Taylor Swift, August, 2020
