Here we are again

It is the night of the hottest day of the summer, after the warmest night on record. Fans whir in different corners of our house, and open windows catch the breeze. We don't have air conditioning, and we have no plans to get it, despite the fact that it would be really lovely right now. But here in our little corner of the Pacific Northwest, I can survive a few nights of sweaty discomfort. Usually, usually, when we keep our house closed during the day, the shade from the massive trees in our yard keeps the inside cool enough. And, truth be told, something about walking from the heat of the day into air that feels artificially cool and then back out again feels weirdly unhealthy to me. But I don't work in an air conditioned environment, either.

My daughter sleeps sprawled out with her blanket wrapped around her head; she gets hot, but she has this need to be cocooned, much like I do. When Isaac is hot, we wipe him down with cool washcloths and point a fan at his bed. He sleeps with his stuffed animals, clutching his nightly favorite (usually Shasta the wolf or Beagle, but this week he has added Foxy the Fox, who came home from Glacier with him) and surrounded by a few others.

"This is a lot of friends in bed, Bud," I say when I crawl into bed to kiss him goodnight. "I'm not sure there's room for all of you." And he screeches in protest when I pretend to take one for myself.

It is the night of the hottest day of summer. Tomorrow, after gymnastics, the plan is to spend the rest of the afternoon at Madison Beach, swimming in Lake Washington. We try to do this at least once every summer, twice if we're lucky, almost always in August. Matt and I take turns swimming out to the floating dock with the diving boards while the kids splash and swim and build sandcastles. We go out for pizza afterwards. It's our almost-end-of-summer ritual, to soak in these last lazy August days. I love this: to feel the heat on my shoulders as the shadows lengthen. To swim in Lake Washington with a view of Mount Rainier, to feel the sheer pleasure of water and sunshine on my skin, to put down the pressing anxieties of a new school year, the planning and the worrying and the anticipation, to just be present in the moment.

The other is my annual 5k for Northwest Hope & Healing along Alki Beach, the last Sunday in August. This year will be my seventh, and it happens next weekend. I will run, and my family will cheer at the finish. I'll eat a bowl of clam chowder from Duke's Chowder House, served from one of the tents set up along the waterfront, which is surprisingly perfect at the end of a morning 5k along Puget Sound. Then we'll go eat brunch at Easy Street Records and wander the farmer's market, just like we do on Father's Day.

"This bookends our summer," I said to Matt today. Father's Day, back in June, feels like so long ago. Isn't that funny? When teachers greet each other at the end of summer, it goes like this: "How was your summer?" "Too short!" But it hasn't been too short for me; it's been perfect. It's been enough. I've had my long summer afternoons in the sun. We've played at the ocean. We've played in the backyard. We've spent so much time in so much water: hot springs in Montana, swimming pools, sprinklers, splash parks, lakes. Matt and I have hiked. The kids and I have spent mornings at the school playground; they played while I jogged around the track. Sometimes we collected the neighbor boys along the way; sometimes they just ran back and forth between our houses. My kids have been bored and whiny and learned to deal with that when I said no, you may not watch a movie right now. We've sprawled listlessly in the heat. We've had spontaneous lunch dates with friends. We've spent time with family. There have been cookouts, gin and tonics at campsites, S'mores. Popcorn in my dad's ancient popcorn popper, deer in my parents' backyard. Sunsets spreading across an infinite dome of sky. I drove one of my favorite stretches of Montana highway at dusk while my family dozed around me. I've read great books. I've tried to write about it all. It has been exactly, exactly, what my soul needed. And we're all ready, I think, to embrace what comes next.

I used to describe August as one long Sunday afternoon, filled with a sort of low-grade anxiety bordering on dread depending upon all kinds of things. But in the past couple of years especially, it hasn't felt that way. Tonight I thought about how much I have always loved the beginning of the school year, both as a student and as a teacher. It's a gut thing. It's about fresh new notebooks, pencils, maybe a new outfit. New planners. Unbent edges. Possibility and potential. As a mother of two school-aged children who still love school, it's about seeing old friends and making new ones. Both of my kiddos, this year, know and love their school; Suzannah has the same teacher, and she still has a year's buffer between now and middle school. Isaac is still at that beautiful age when school is just purely fun and safe and his learning is exploding and he is so proud of it all. And now that I'm no longer birthing and breastfeeding and potty-training my little ones, now that they are growing into their own independent selves, it feels like the right time for me to grow in different directions myself. I had my babies and I loved having babies, and now I love having school-aged children who are content to hang out at school with me while I have meetings and plan professional development and set up my classroom. I love having children who are just used to this framework, who see school as their home base, their comfort zone.

I hold all of this close to my heart this week, because I am overwhelmed. It's not a bad thing, exactly. It's good work. But every single square on my calendar for August is full. Yesterday morning I sat with my new planner, looking at those two white pages with all of its writing, and I couldn't decide whether to scream or cry. Every day is full: meetings, soccer practice, gymnastics, a dentist appointment, more meetings, registration, professional development. I'm teaching a class I haven't taught before; when am I even going to plan for that?

I remember a day in college, so many years ago but still so vivid. I sat in a lit class, junior year, a semester in which nothing about my life felt okay, and I made a to-do list. I sat in that desk in Bishop Whipple Hall and looked at that list and pressed my fingers against my mouth to keep from literally screaming out loud. I was taking on too much and I wasn't okay. But I whispered to myself, "It will all get done because it has to."

It will all get done because it has to.

The great difference, I suppose, is that I can see the big picture in a way I couldn't when I was twenty years old, and I am living with great joy and love even when I am stressed out. But I still stop every now and then when things pile up, and I say: It will all get done because it has to. And I'm not twenty years old any longer, and I can see the bigger picture. It's one I believe in. The picture is constantly developing and evolving, but I love it. I'm in it. It's beautiful. Let's do this.