We're deep into summer. Heartily heated, bored by the simple glory of each brand new free day, Free. Yep. After the bitter school year, day after day of getting dressed and following other people's rules. Being nice to stranger kids. Not throwing food. Walking in straight lines.
Summer is good because the kids get to be jagged. They get to cram themselves into summertime bodies, which are longer, sunblocked, sunbleached, chlorinated shorts-covered. We don't do much, and still the days just scream by. Both Emma and Nathan sleep in boxer shorts with no shirt. Lilly sleeps in just a diaper. Strewn across the bed like a knocked out prize fighter. At night Emma always has a new worry. She likes to think up times when she was sad or scared or crying, and retell the story. I tell her to try and think of happy times, but she says she can't help it. I know the feeling. Maybe she'll grow up to paint vast, sad landscapes, filled with longing.
We still have our routines. Piano on Tuesdays. Visit Poppa and the cousins afterwards. Grandandy's on Sundays. Biscuits and candy store. We've been to the beach, been bowling, been to gymnastics (Emma is a precise gymnast, Nathan throws himself around like a bag of sand). The baby got her new (old) carseat in the car, turned around to the front like a big person, I might as well drive directly to college.
Being a mom to these older kids and one fledgling baby, it's hard to grab hold of any of it. It's like trying to grab hot jello. We're in the middle of July and I want to stay here, isn't there anything we can buy that will cement us here forever? Permanent black mud to seal our feet in these places, where I can just pour out the love and the kids will stay awhile? Young, vibrant, some big teeth some small teeth some no teeth?
Maybe this is the definition of crazy, but I think I love exactly where I am. Sure, it'd be nice to have a conversation that didn't involve the words "STOP" and "NO," I'd like to remember the bigger picture of my life as a whole, with love, travel, whimsy... but stopping here, and staying awhile, right here...these little sprites are my ticket to a pure world - the one I'm actually in. Each day has something miraculous in it, and there's enough love, travel, whimsy and longing to bring Hemingway back from the dead. This summer, everyone's going somewhere, Europe, Africa, across the country... Barry and me and the kids are just here, being here, suffocating in ourselves and rolling in our freedom. This is what freedom feels like. You can't breathe, because everything about this one moment is too good. We're not going anywhere. There's no big revelation. We're just together.
