Don't Do Me Any Pavers (Summer Update)

The summer has us in its clutches, and it is a beachy ride. Today we met another Emma at the beach and her music teacher mom, and we took some neighbor friends and the kids stayed in the waves the whole day, and I got to see my summer Ojai friend From The Past, we meet every summer and scheme how to see each other more and how to make more money and then the ocean is louder than us, and the kids need food and somehow nothing gets accomplished. But the kids are growing like ripe tomatoes and the sun and sea baste them into who they will be later, looking back. Later, in a cozy dorm room I hope they will look back and remember the beach, the tumbling of the ocean on their bodies, and me back there just a small dot on the edge of the water, just glad to be there with them.

Other summer enterprises were the putting in of the driveway in the blasting heat, where we put the children to work and burned our fingers and there were saws that spun and cut bricks with water, something Barry shouldn't have been anywhere near and yet he was cutting them like a seasoned Egyptian pyramid builder. I never want to see a paver again. If the road to hell is paved, I've been on the road and it aint worth it folks. Afterwards I told Nathan, please go to college because I never want him to have to work like this again.

This is also the summer of Becky. The puppy that dared to fill the shoes of the recently departed Hank, the Great Pyrenees/Border Collie. Hank was the guarder of the house, the dog that knew where all of us were and made sure no pool man got too close to the fence - we loved Hanky Spanky for 11 years.

But now Becky the black lab is with us, 4 and a half months old now. She swims, sleeps on the bed, chases chickens, rides on the golf cart, tears up tissue boxes, lays on Dewey the horse's hay as Dewey is eating. She has several nicknames:

Becky Sparkles
Barky Speckles
Specky Barkles
Speckles
Mrs. Becklesworth
Ubeckistan
Sparky

I recommend a Labrador to every house with a six year old. Becky and Bess are best friends, when Becky is not enthusiastically chewing her face off.

I've spent some of the summer getting over a collapsed lung and why is this sounding like a year end Christmas card? I feel like I'm breaking up with my blog. Anyway, I just wanted to say that once you have half a lung and then your lung decides to kick back in and give it a go again, and you feel a little bit better, then you have this constant mixture of fear (will it collapse again, in traffic, with a carful of kids on the way to the beach anxiety) and euphoria (I am alive, I am alive, I am here).

It makes the beach a very sweet place to feel, and time in the sun with the kids and open space around us, no schedule - I can feel my life hanging there, feel like I can use my life every ounce of it. If I turn off my mind and just feel, I am in the middle of the best. Shhh.

It's a tonic for all the yelling and doing too much and losing things and bossing (get off your Ipod, take your dishes in, will you stop arguing for a minute, I have to drive you where?, why do you need friends all the time?, crushed by all the people yelling "mom!!"). It's a tightrope, and I'm pretty sure it's hot lava if you fall off, and under the lava is the guy paving a driveway into eternity. And there's a spot open for you.

Stop thinking, and feel. And get to a beach.

I also started riding again, out on the scary trail, with The Doctor (I like to take a doctor along, I think it's prudent). She's a rider in the neighborhood and she doesn't mind when I ask if we can ride the same exact trail every time in my quest to be the most boring friend there is. The rides in the wilderness of Hansen Dam at 7 am are soul balm. I get home just in time to see the kids waking up and to make banana pancakes.

Falling into summer, her arms are baked and warm.