Hello dear reader! I know I have been absent for too long…thank you for hanging in there with me.
Summer days…this season, they’ve been filled with Rock Band Camp, Trackers Earth camps, baseball camps, Art Camp, opera matinees, D’s birthday party at an indoor bike track and good times with friends at the beach and just hanging out at home with the flock. Oh and there’s that pesky addition that just doesn’t know when to quit.
Last week I spent a full day at school helping kick off the Strategic Planning process. As an icebreaker, the facilitator asked us to introduce ourselves and share the highlight of our summer. I usually take an instant dislike to these types of exercises, and the person behind them, but in this case, at least upon reflection, it was a nice reminder that we have DONE SO MUCH this summer I couldn’t pinpoint a single event. Truly most days we are just managing to keep all the moving parts oiled and operational!
Still when I was asked this, I was feeling the heavy weight of the smoke-filled skies and the rust-can sunsets (August was dominated by forest fires, which ironically muted the scorching temperatures of the weeks prior), and we had recently returned from a similarly-lackluster gray trip to Dallas (alas–a silver lining: not 1 illness or injury on this trip!), so I was not feeling particularly sunny about the season and I couldn’t think of anything to say.
Then yesterday evening, it rained, finally. After over a month of utter gloom, unsafe air and dead grass, the clouds relented. Not heavy, not long, but enough to clear out the smoke and the wash away the listless dust and pollen from the horizon. This morning the hummingbirds danced in our trees, the duck across the street honked, and the blue skies were back, with puffy clouds and glorious warmth. So today, I put off some dull work for another day, and D and I went to the pool, which was practically deserted since school has started for the nearby districts. What a relief it was to bask in the sun and frolic: jump, jump again! D must have jumped in the pool 100 times. And we were not shivering (ok, by the end we were getting cold. This is Portland after all)! Still–we had the outdoor pool nearly to ourselves–and I can confidently write that if I had that meeting over again I could easily say today was the highlight of my summer. In the sparkling sunlight and under the glittery water, I took time to study D’s hands, feet, and face, all of which have all recently grown dramatically (I bought him 5 new pairs of shoes this weekend!). His legs seem to have doubled in diameter, and his eyes–always so large–seem to be improbably stretched to their orbital limit.
D has also mellowed with this recent growth spurt–he’ll sit for an hour or 2 and read! I asked him today if he was feeling sick and he said no, just tired. Tired? What? My kiddo? Never.
Here are some fave snaps from the last few months–a breath of fresh air from the remodel, like those blue skies today…
P.S. Actually I do have a legitimate “summer” highlight–it was D playing multiple instruments in rock band camp. Stay tuned for a post with videos!
I love your writing!
Thanks for reading, Lori!