Thoughts from the editor…..
June 15, 2026
By Michele Miller
What’s What New Port Richey
Spring is set to meld into summer, which doesn’t always make much of a difference in these parts, save for the rainy day patterns we’re hoping for and some personal fresh starts and goals flittingly embarked on, like a fleeting summer love that doesn’t hold you to the promise of withstanding commitment.
To that end, I’ve recently started logging pages read in the local library’s Summer Reading Program, a habit that comes with prizes, too, and lends order to the lazy days of semi-retirement and a welcome escape from what’s going on “out there.”
Been keeping up with a six-minute-a-day, 30-day Tai Chi Challenge I took on because it’s slow and steady, and being able to balance yourself is a pretty big deal for us old folks and our aging, osteoporotic bones.
Just earned a green badge on the Down Dog yoga app for making my 5-day-a-week practice goal this past month.
In the past six weeks or so I’ve also racked up twenty-something miles by joining the collective swimming “Race to Aruba” held in the lap pool at the New Port Richey Aquatic Center, rising to the challenge after being prodded by a fellow lap swimmer who marveled at the motivation sparked in seeing your name on a leaderboard posted at the front desk and the prospect of getting a t-shirt for placing in the top 20 when the race is won and done. At last tally, I was #7.
Whoo hoo.
These are New Year’s resolutions kind of things I never made in January, when the well-stuffed hibernator types were sleeping it off in their dens and caves.
I can relate.
It seems senseless and unnatural to right the ship, so to speak, after what is typically months of intemperate behavior that commences like clockwork with the Halloween season and barrels right through Thanksgiving, the winter holidays, and maybe into February if you’re a dark chocolate freak like me.
I was raised in the northeast, where a crocus peeping through the snow and the forsythia’s yellow spring bloom provided more inspiration to get moving. To be better. To embark on a fresh start, bucking the tradition of midwinter’s inaugural celebration of a new year punctuated with fireworks, the clink of fluted glasses, and indulgent regrets.
New Year’s expectations set us up. We are doomed to fail. So why bother?
Better to just follow your own rhythm. Delve into the innate spring awakening that you don’t shake just because you moved to the tropics thirty-something years ago. An awakening that lasts, perhaps, as long as summer love. And that’s okay.
Now onward.
Michele Miller is the creator, editor, and content creator for the What’s What New Port Richey community website and biweekly newsletter, which has been up and running since June of 2020. Prior to that, she wrote “good news” stories, features, and columns while working as a reporter and photographer for the St. Petersburg Times/Tampa Bay Times. She resides in New Port Richey. Contact her at mmiller@whatswhatnewportrichey.com
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