And just like that, it's July. Summer really is still just beginning, so I am trying not to do the thing I do in July: feel anxious about its inevitable end. I am trying to slow down. Breathe. Relax.
Last year, summer felt a bit too full, too fast. It was full of so much goodness that I don't want this to seem like a complaint: we had family trips to Montana and Minnesota, and I went to Chicago for a truly exciting conference. But these things came so fast, so close together. By the time I was home from Minnesota it was time for me to start prepping for the next school year already and my new responsibilities that came along with it, and I was back at school every day for three weeks before school began. What I missed was the slowness I deeply appreciate and even crave, as a mom and as a teacher. Days of lying around with a book while the kids run through the sprinkler, afternoons of wandering up the street to the park any old time without planning it first. It's not that these days didn't happen at all last summer, but I actually had to plan them. This summer, I'm looking forward to a family road trip and to another truly exciting conference, but I'm hoping for a slower pace.
The last two days have delivered exactly this, but I've had to retrain myself to appreciate it instead of feel anxious. Sometimes I feel I need to account for my days in the form of lists, little things I can check off and say, "This is done." Two days ago I found my anxiety mounting throughout the afternoon. The morning was full of documentable activities; Suzannah and I got pedicures (Isaac played quietly on his Leapster and waited for us, but we made sure we had the first spots of the day), we took Isaac to get a haircut, we met Auntie Morgan for lunch, and I cleaned the bathrooms and vacuumed the house. But then the day slid into languidness, in that way of summer afternoons. I turned the kids loose in the backyard with the hose. I wandered around restlessly before pouring myself a glass of iced tea and reading some more of my book: A Brief History of Seven Killings, by Marlon James. (If anyone is interested, I think that might be the most brilliant work of literature I will read this year. No exaggeration.) The next day, we walked to the park in the morning and a different park in the afternoon. We ate lunch together. The kids were whiny and bored but I think dealing with boredom is an important part of childhood and sure enough, they bothered each other for awhile but also played basketball in the front yard, blew bubbles in the backyard, and dug out some watercolor paints. Eventually one of them punched the other "as part of a game" and I banished them to separate parts of the house. Suzannah became so absorbed in her book during her exile that she declined to come out, and Isaac busied himself with toys he'd forgotten he even had. I read more of my book. Today we met Kyanne for a leisurely lunch in Tacoma, plus coffee, plus a bit of wandering around, but back at home I lounged in the backyard with another glass of iced tea and another book and the kids played and I thought, this is exactly what I want out of summer. The sun on my shoulders, a glass of iced tea on my patio, a book in my hand. The kids playing, fighting, running through the sprinkler, biking up the street. This. What a privilege it really is, to lie in my backyard in this neighborhood, to see nothing but trees and hear nothing but birds and the occasional lawnmower at four o'clock in the afternoon.
It's not that I don't have to-do lists; I'm still me, after all. But they don't have to be daily to-do lists. Not yet. Not on the first of July. And the first two weeks of summer have been full enough: we packed our entire house into our living and dining rooms, had all our carpet replaced, and are still in the process of putting our house back together. Matt's parents have been visiting. They took the kids to the ocean with them for a few nights; Matt and I joined them for a day at the beach but rented a hotel room with an ocean view and a loft with a jacuzzi instead of camping. (That was pretty spectacular.) Our kitchen faucet started leaking. We replaced it. Our backyard faucet started leaking, which meant that we had to call the contractor who did our kitchen and patio and over the past few days we've had guys in our backyard cutting into the side of our house early in the morning. Our new kitchen faucet has a different problem, so we probably have to return it and replace it again. And I understand that any problem that can be solved with a quick evening trip to Home Depot is not, in fact, a real problem at all; all the same, sometimes my highly anxious self creates problems where there aren't any to be found.
All that to say: this afternoon, as I settled myself into my backyard chair with my book and my glass of iced tea, as I wondered whether or not I was making the most of my summer, as I fretted about house repairs and swimming lessons and travel details, I thought to myself: don't ruin this moment, this sunny and slow afternoon. Just be in it. And I realized in that moment that the last couple of days, the ones that have had me so worried that I wasn't doing enough to enjoy my summer, have been exactly the kind of days I have waited for, wanted, craved.
I also uninstalled Facebook on my phone. I thought I'd leave it off while I was at the ocean; then I decided I'd leave it off for a week. Now I'm determined to leave it off at least through the fourth of July. Longer? I don't know. I've read a bit when I'm on my computer (which isn't happening much since I got rid of my huge, old, increasingly flimsy corner desk when we got new carpet; this weekend I'm going to get something simpler, sturdier, and smaller) but I think my anxiety decreased significantly when I gave myself permission to just take a damn break. Two things: I do not want to be the person scrolling mindlessly through Facebook every time I have a quiet moment, because I think we could all benefit from being present in the real world even in those moments in which things are boring or awkward, because remember what it feels like to just be a person in the world? To just be? And second of all, and this is honestly an entry I am not ready to write, or maybe I'm just sick of trying to write it again and again and again: I cannot read any more shit from people whose first response to yet another mass shooting is "Stay away from my gun rights!" I am so, so, so done with this even as I understand we are absolutely nowhere near done and we are also apparently nowhere near even trying to do the tiniest damn thing about it. This will keep happening. And when people are gunned down in their safe places, in schools and churches and clubs and movie theaters, the fact that we respond with "Not MY guns" and "It's not a GUN problem!" before we say anything else? That makes me literally, physically ill. We are ill. And I cannot. I cannot read that shit on Facebook right now. (How many times have I written a slightly different version of this very same thing?) It's not just that; I think a break from social media is just a very healthy thing every now and then, which is why I've tried to take a week off each month of 2016 so far. I have been only marginally successful, but something about my need to recenter myself, to breathe deeply, has made it easier for me to do this summer. And that's where I'm at right now.
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