Loaf Mass

There are moments when all the clarity that we are trying to manufacture in our lives—all the self-help books and podcasts, all the health pursuits, all the belief systems—come into instant focus, and the anxiety, fear, and depression melt away. Usually there’s something that triggers these moments; for me, it was a bit of dental trauma.

That sharpening of thought happened to me this morning while I was reading and listening to “Breakfast With the Beatles” on WUMB-FM Boston. Chachi Loprette played “Two of Us” from the Beatles’ Let It Be album, and I had one of those dolly-zoom moments, like the famous scene in Jaws where Chief Brody witnesses the shark attacking the little boy. It was a critical moment in the story, the moment where Chief Brody realizes that there is no more staying in the “normal world.” In the vocabulary of the Hero’s Journey, Brody answered the call and crossed the threshold into a new world.

That’s what this moment in the Summer of 2026 felt like for me: a reluctant crossing. I wanted to continue indulging my creative energy, new writing projects and stories, bike riding, visiting friends, enjoying Vermont beer, watching the sun rise and set, picking berries for Chantal to turn into jam, and bingeing brilliant shows like Widow’s Bay (twice! When does Ludwig return?).

But my dentist refocused me. There’s nothing like a course of antibiotics and a diet of banana smoothies to gently urge you forward.

Without getting too deep into the weeds, I’ve been waiting for/forcing this moment of clarity all summer. How appropriate that it happens on August 1^st—the midpoint between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. Some may view this with resignation, that summer is truly over, and that it is time to knuckle down and prepare—prepare for school, prepare for the harvest, prepare for the hardships of the upcoming winter, the season of darkness.

It’s not that there were bad things happening—no cancer redux. Oh, sure, there were some poignant moments: my father’s graveside ceremony after his death last March, Chantal heading back out to sea, and a sporty visit to the dentist that resulted in the reduction of total teeth in my head by one, accompanied by a regimen of various pills.

But there was the looming work that needed to be done in preparation for the academic year, work that I adore, but work that triggers that moment of clarity. It’s time to look forward, to embrace that steady advance that none of us can stop. Through that embrace we discover that the impediment of the way becomes the way.

There’s a line in the song “Two of Us” where Paul McCartney sings, “You and I have memories/Longer than the road that stretches out ahead.” It’s an important moment in the song not only because it is the musical bridge, but it is the lyrical pivot point of the story, which is about two friends as they face a moment of inflection. For John Lennon and Paul McCartney, that moment was the dissolution of the Beatles. This song frames that not in sadness, but in gladness and joy for the having had the moment in the first place. It feels like a love letter that they wrote to each other, despite any polish that McCartney might have spun, or any cynicism that Lennon might have heaped on.

In our yearly calendar, there is much made around the solstices and equinoxes—and rightly so. But traditionally, the cross-quarter days have been just as important, marking astronomical midpoints between the season changes—40 days or so. And that brings us to Loaf Mass.

Just as our memories signal that there is a road ahead, so does Loaf Mass give us an important pivot point. It represents the beginning of the harvest in northern latitudes, and from that first harvest of grain came the first loaf of bread baked, something to be thankful for. The practice was observed long before Christianity turned it into a religious moment—the “mass.” Civilized agriculture had a 10,000 year head start, and people were marking these moments as part of their acknowledgement that there were things they controlled, and things that they didn’t control. And when the stars aligned, it was time to celebrate.

I won’t be baking bread for this Loaf Mass; it’ll probably be another protein banana smoothie for me, at least for another day or so while the hole in my jaw heals. But I will acknowledge the blessings of the past six weeks, including the anxieties and brushes with depression and self-doubt, as a foundation for my work over the next six weeks, before the academic year begins anew.

It’s time to let the memories become the road ahead.