Our local school district lets out this week. My kindergartner is "graduating" on Wednesday, and my second grader's last day is Thursday. I can't wait, and I say that without the smallest bit of sarcasm. I love the lazy days of summer!
Even if I am getting up early to go running with my friends, it's still later than when we have to get our kids up and ready for school. I love letting the kids sleep in each morning. They're rested and happier during the day. I love taking them swimming and riding bikes and doing all the fun things you get to do in the summer. I even have a few moments when I feel sorry for my husband, that he's not a stay-at-home dad, because it can be so much fun to be a stay-at-home mom!
Our prompt for this week is simply: Summer!
I hope you're having a happy start to your summer.
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My response:
It was dark and shady in the woods behind Jessica's house. Light filtered through the leaves of the trees in that whimsical, otherworldly way, and the brook babbled as it hurried by. Leaves littered the forest floor, but they were too damp to crunch underfoot - they just disintegrated into the mud. It smelled of mold and water. As adults, we start to think water doesn't have a smell, but animals and children know different.
It was dangerous back there, or at least, the way I remember it, it was dangerous. The water was swift, tearing little sticks out of our hands. A piece of rope hung off a branch of an oak, just on our side of the water. If you got a running start, and if you didn't let go for the pain of the rope splintering into your palms, you could reach the other side. This had to be done one by one, of course, and that meant that no babies, by age or by nerves, could join us on our grand adventures. We could almost imagine, as we took that leap of faith and tested our bodies, that we stepped into a new world.
After that first step, it didn't matter much which side of the water we were one. We crossed on fallen logs, on old two by fours left over from the construction of our neighborhood, even across tall rocks in one of the more narrow spots. We discovered berries and bear tracks, defended ourselves from wolves one day and fought off mountain lions the next.
We couldn't see the road from the forest, so it was hard to tell when the street lights turned on and we were expected home. Still, we seemed to know when we reached the large hay bale that it was time to turn around. Maybe the bale was proof of civilization, and it broke through our imaginings and snapped us back to the world. Maybe there was still a little bit of fear in each of us that we were trespassing where we weren't wanted. Either way, we always turned around at the hay bale.
I've been back to some of the places I lived growing up. Each time, I've wondered at how small everything actually is, compared to the way I remember it. I haven't been back to the old neighborhood with the forest. Now I wonder if there is actually a forest, or is it just a stand of trees? How wide was that creek, actually? If we'd fallen in, would we have been swept downriver to our deaths, as we imagined, or would we have simply been wet through, sitting on the mud while water swirled around us?
I may never go back. I don't know if I want to. The way I remember it is so grand ...too magical ... to ruin with reality.
Summer is a lot of things. Mostly, it is hot. Some people like hot. I don’t. See, when it is cold, you can always put on a sweater, or coat, or gloves, or hat, or blanket, or something to help warm up. But when you get hot…well, there is only so much you can take off. Eventually, there just isn’t any more you can do when it is hot. Today nearly everyone has air conditioning in their home, or at least a swamp cooler, and you can’t hardly find a car without it. When I was growing up, we only had one vehicle with air conditioning, the ¾ ton Dodge Ram Van, and we never used it because it caused the engine to overheat. Air conditioning at home? Nope. My parents got air conditioning when I was in my twenties. But, you know what? We got through it just fine.
ReplyDeleteSummer is also, unfortunately, about allergies. Until Claritin became a generic, over the counter product, spring, summer and fall were about a runny nose, for me at least. At least I rarely had watery eyes or trouble breathing, like some others have. Now, with the wonders of modern medicine, it isn’t such a big deal. Well, as they say, better living through chemistry.
For many people summer is about the beach, or pools, or lakes and streams. Not so for me. I grew up next door to a swimming pool. I never learned to swim. Can’t say that I see much use in it. The way I see it, so long as I avoid the water, my chances of drowning are pretty slim. But, I supposed time changes everything, and I will need to learn to swim someday. Probably sooner, rather than later, since water sports are a pretty big portion of my in-law’s lives.
In the end, summer is also about being outside. Whether it was playing in the sandbox with the “Tonka” trucks, hunting for grasshoppers to feed to the spiders, looking under rocks for worms or ants, there is always something to do when you are little and have time on your hands. After dark, my brother and I would hide in our room and pretend to sneak attack the cars that drove by until 10, when Star Trek came on. As I got older, summer became about basketball, mowing lawns, trimming bushes and trees, and, most importantly, no school.
Maybe that is why I chose to enter I field where I am outside so much…