Hot Opal Summer
We’re rethinking things, and learning how to expand our Opal universe. Part of our pause serves to update our archive, to give our editions a permanent home on our website. So far, Chariot, Sun, and Hermit have been published with the rest on their way. With our newfound computer skills, Opal Age will be changing (for the better) once we reopen our doors to submissions in the fall.
We’re celebrating Hot Opal Summer with a break, but we couldn’t resist starting a blog in the meantime. We’ll be posting about our adventures, recommendations, musings, ways to support the world (with instructions on donating e-sims for Palestine), and we’ll be accepting your blog submissions, too — if you feel so inclined.
Here’s what we’ve been doing while we’ve been away from the Opal Office.
Claude
Travels
Not on my 2024 Bingo Card this year was living between Michigan and California. Once again, I've been greeted by the pangs of grief and the joy of new unclehood. Between crying by creeks, getting bit by mosquitos, and building furniture to oncle jazz; I’m sitting diligently with the circle of life with minimal wifi to boot.
Co-Creation
I’m spending as much time with as many bodies of water as possible. The sea, the creeks, my thoughts, and the great lakes are all trying to whisper something to me- mysterious but clear. Summer nights are spent writing more casually or critically depending on what the heat allows. It’s my heart's desire that I go on at least ONE (1) cute date this summer. After all, even Opal’ers need a hand to hold.
Claude's Summer Reading List
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Song of the Lioness Series by Tamora Pierce
Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay
From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want by Rob Hopkins
The Fire Next Timeby James Baldwin
////////
Parable of the Sower
Katie
Travels
My mom visited and we took a bus and to Vienna. This choice was fueled by her decades long obsession with Marie Antoinette, leading us to Schönbrunn Palace. The trip was beautiful until it was not; we spent most of our excursion to Hallstatt and our return back to Prague talking to emergency vets in train tunnels with no service and crying by the most picturesque lake in the world. My chihuahua didn’t make it.
Crafting
I’m making bracelets, molding little clay fish beads, helping my girlfriend glue rhinestones to a satin dress. I want to make my own lamp (seems easy), get into painting (seems hard), and finally fix my sewing machine so I can actually learn how to make my own pants that fit. The list is endless and growing.
Katie’s Summer Reading List (maximum emotional damage)
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
Peter
How beautiful and how terrible is it all! The extreme heat and the extreme grief draw me to comfort when I can; to stories and faces that first showed me the kindness and the art that exists in this world. Being my chosen namesake it may come as no surprise that I often turn to the wisdom of Mister Rogers. I also find joy, time and time again, in dinosaurs. A reminder of the promise that we will end and the Earth will still turn in our absence. I have found relief in a diagnosis, while my disability has expanded so has my knowledge of myself and the ways in which I can learn to take care. Our neighbors, our Earth, ourselves, and my new cane. What more could any season give us?
