Flying

The summer just flew by!  So many of us are thinking, if not saying that right now.  Friends who teach in Columbia county, Georgia are back at school today for pre-planning.  Other teacher friends will return next week.  Back to school sales have been happening since July 4.

Perhaps your summer has been and continues to be filled with cookouts, lake trips, and pool time.  You have attended weddings and family reunions.  Maybe time has flown this summer because someone you love is ill or friends have been in dire straits.  Home improvements, jobs, swimming lessons, and summer camps may have filled up your calendar.  Whatever the case, maybe you are like me - just now looking up and thinking "What? It can't be July 31."

When a writer takes a three month hiatus, you might think it is to go on retreat or participate in a workshop.  My unintended break ended up to be to:

 1.  Watch my middle son graduate
 2.  Travel to Italy and Austria
 3.  Resign my job in Georgia
 4.  Pack my house
 5.  Move to Iowa
 6.  Unpack into a new house
 7.  Start a new job
 8. Begin navigating a new town

In a sense, this has been both a retreat and a workshop.  I felt overwhelmed at times by the emotions of packing up fourteen years of life and love.  Saying goodbye to friends to move somewhere new is astonishingly difficult even in the digital age.

No one means to let time fly past, but it does.  Most of us talk about seizing the day, being mindful, making the most of every minute.  And we try.  And sometimes we succeed.

You may be like me - experiencing a big change over the course of a season.  Your season may not be shifting for a while.  Maybe the impending start of school dictates adjustments in your routine.

No matter when life shifts and changes, I am reminded of something I used to say to incoming freshmen:  "Remember that this is not a means to an end.  You don't do high school to get into college to go to grad school to get a good job to make money so that you can retire and grow old and die."

It really is the journey.

Remember the Back Yard

We had world peace in our backyard one summer.  It was one of the last summers that I lived in the country, and I remember it quite clearly.  Summer came early – at Easter – with the purchase of three dyed ducklings.  One for each child.  They were kept in the shelter of a wire cage and under the awning of the old barn.  The boys tended the ducks daily, and, of course, the cages were elevated so that a passing wild dog or coyote couldn’t have supper.

At that time, we had a one-eyed barn cat called Celia, a petite calico who reproduced way too often.  (Yes, yes, I know – but she was semi-wild, and so we didn’t spay her.)  She was one-eyed because she once ran afoul of another creature, her eyeball swelled and popped out.  She kept the mouse population to a tolerable level and regularly chased birds.

We also had a dog called Jack, a boxer-sharpei mix, who was as stupid as he was cute.  He and Celia maintained a cordial relationship when he went outside to poop.  They chased good naturedly until Celia got tired of it and scampered up a tree, then Jack would come to the door to ask to sit in his favorite chair and sleep the day away. 

At dusk there would be deer not far from the house, and once night fell raccoons inevitably rattled around.  It was a balanced yard-  full of characters, but overall a good community.  No harm befell anyone until Jeffrey the duck seemingly took his own life in adolescence.  Just before school, the boys and I went out to find that Jeffrey hanging from his own cage wall by the neck.  Upon closer examination, it appeared that, in fact, a foreign creature of some kind had snatched at Jeffrey, and in attempting to pull him through the cage, snapped his neck. 

The loss of Jeffrey was mourned.  He was buried out near the creek, and our lives, as they must, moved on.  The ducks grew enough to be freed to wander around the yard, ostensibly to grow to make their way to the creek more happily than Jeffrey had.  They wandered around the yard, and when they failed to follow instincts to water, we bought and filled a kiddie pool for them. 

These two male ducks (Ootka and Donald) nested together.  When Jack became overzealous in his teasing, Ootka would honk at Jack and that would be the end of that.  Celia wasn’t interested in ducks who outweighed her; so she kept to the rodents. 

I clearly remember one mid-July evening.  I was sitting on the side stoop of the house, not far from the ducks’ roosting spot.  Celia was splayed out on the stoop, cooling her very pregnant self.  Jack was bouncing around near the ducks without menace, occasionally racing down the driveway to bark at a particularly loud passing motorcycle.  The ducks had bathed in the pool and had commenced rooting around the murky hedge for bugs.  None of these creatures gave the others pause for concern or care.  The yard was wide enough and generous enough for us all. It was – we were – a beautiful little community of life. 

This past week, people around here became territorial, snarling, jealous, cruel, uncaring, selfish, petty, and mean.   Perhaps it was the full moon.  Perhaps it is human nature.  But, when those around me become small, hard, and narrow, I like to think of the yard that summer. 

We were all different, yet the yard was big enough for all.  We all had our own ways of living and our own agendas.  Together we had endured loss; we lived with good-natured teasing; we spent time alone; we cared for each other; we spent time together; we protected each other; we tolerated and even loved those different from ourselves, those with goals and lifestyles different from our own.  We shared the yard.

How was your summer?

“How was your summer?” has been reverberating in the hallways of high schools and across college campuses for the past few weeks.  The traditional “What I did on Summer Vacation” essays will have been read, graded, and revised within the next two weeks.   So, how was your summer?  How was your summer?  How was your summer? 

My summer wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either.  Like hundreds of thousands of people across the nation, my summer began with the end of school.  I finished my 24^th year in high school on June first.  For sixteen of those years, I was a classroom teacher.  So, a few days, a couple of meetings, and one well-intentioned but always ill-conceived end of the year luncheon after graduation, summer began. Not being a classroom teacher now, though, I work through the summer (like the vast majority of Americans).  The hallways are quieter, but the work continues: testing statistics, best practice research, cleaning out last year’s publications to make room for the next year.  We have things to do over the summer. 

Everybody does:

Vacations.

Cook outs.

Baseball games.

Beach trips.

Family reunions.

We all have things to do over the summer whether or not we work full time during these three precious months.  And, now here we all are at the end, ready to go back and report on how we spent our time.  Perhaps we share some common ground.

I revisited the city where I spent five college years.  I went to two weekend conferences there, and I still agree with myself: this is a great city to live in.  My son, who is a junior there, disagrees and argues that the tenor of the town changes when the undergrads are drunk in the streets.  Yep, I remember.  But, I wouldn’t be a part of that scene if I lived there as an adult.  Still a great place: cultural, gastronomical, athletic, literary opportunities abound.  In between those two weekends, I visited my parents in the town and home where I spent my formative years.  I hung out with a high school friend, a college friend, and a friend of my sister’s.  More traffic there.  I still mostly know my way around there despite an absence of thirteen years.  I feel like I could, indeed, go home again and be quite comfortable. 

Then, I spent some time alone.  Not by design, but due to the fact that eldest son was in summer school, middle son was on a beach trip with friends and then at summer language camp, and youngest son was with his dad.  I found out I can, pretty comfortably, not talk to anyone for hours on end.  A good thing?  I think so.  Middle son was worried that I became anti-social during this time.  Not so.  Also during this time, I was privileged to help a friend who was recovering from surgery.  Yes, I was alone, but I didn’t curl up or wither up.  I did the things that about fifteen years ago I would have lamented never having time to do:  read the whole newspaper, watch the movies I wanted to see, go to the bathroom alone, make exactly what I wanted for supper and then eat it while I read my favorite book.

Finally, it was road trip time.  Ten days up to New York state and back, including lots of points in between with middle son.  It is good to change your surroundings occasionally – from rearranging furniture to just seeing something new outside of the car window – this can refresh your approach to life.  And so it did for me.  We also did some planning for the future; he is a high school senior, and the future looms, inviting him to new places and marking changes for me.

We didn’t go to the beach and, blessedly, I only had to watch one baseball game.  For me this summer was about looking back when we were in Iowa; reviewing the past and the places where I come from.  It was also about discovering peace in the present.  Where I thought there might be panic or fear, I found that I enjoy my own company, and I have dear friends to spend time with.  Finally, in the college visit road trip, I have begun to embrace the future fact that two-thirds of my family will be gone next year at this time. 

Maybe you watched a lot of baseball; maybe you spent weeks at beach or did the family reunion thing.  Perhaps you had an illness to contend with or a wedding that launched you into a new life.  As a teacher and parent, September first has always been more of a New Year than the one in January.  As we enter this New Year, my hope for you is that you embrace what you have learned from the past, you have peace in your present, and some really great plans for the future.  How was your summer?

Independence and Strong Winds

Yesterday my eldest son called me from college to lament the fact that with half the summer now gone, he finally found a summer job.  The deal we had was that he could go to summer semester if he paid his own living expenses, hence the need for a job.  After a month of sweating it, this looks like it will pan out.  However, he noted that he was going to have to go to class most of the day, then work all evening, and then he’d have to get up earlier to study for class.  His whole day would be taken up with – gasp – work!  Either class work or work-work or working out (which he has to do to stay in shape for his ROTC scholarship).  He went on to tell me that real life wasn't like this: you didn't have to work your job and then work after your job, too.  (I chuckled.  Out loud.) He was lamenting not because he is incapable.  Not because he’s a spoiled baby.  He was lamenting simply because he has been hit on the head with the brick of adult life.  

Last week at a conference in Iowa, the coordinator gave strict instructions to the attendees:  if there’s a tornado warning do not follow the people from Iowa.  Why?  Because the people from Iowa would not take shelter, they would go out to see the storm.  When I was little, the sirens could send me, my sisters, and mom to the basement in the late afternoon or even in the middle of the night.  I remember more than one basement sleep out due to the Ozian conditions outside.  Well, I actually don’t know what the conditions were because I was relegated to the basement.  However, I do remember realizing that Dad was rarely in the basement with us.  He was on the porch, watching the storm do its thing.  I suppose he wanted to see the beast that was to sweep us all away or maybe he was simply giving instructions to the wind, “Okay, that’s good.  Now, move on so I can go to bed; I have work in the morning.”  I do clearly remember the first time I was allowed not to be in the basement – I was about in 5^th grade, and the sirens were blaring outside and the weathermen were predicting wind-induced apocalypse.  Mom trundled my sisters downstairs, and I slipped through the living room to join Dad on the porch.  The wind, the rain, the dark clouds were all thrilling.  “This isn't going to amount to much, Laura,” and Dad walked around the garage to make sure the garbage cans hadn't overturned.  From that time on, I didn't have to go to the basement.

Maybe such feelings of being grown up are not really true.  The fact of the matter is:  my dad was right there.  I felt independent, and of course I lorded it over my sisters the next day that I didn't have to cower downstairs.  But, in retrospect, it wasn't the standing on the porch that made Dad a grown up  - it was that he righted the garbage cans before he went back inside.  That’s the stuff grown-up, independent life is made of, as my eldest is finding out this summer.  

Compared to many of my peers, I have been a late bloomer in the traditions of growing up.  I bought my first car at age 42.  I bought my first house at age 43.  Sure, I've been employed ever since I had a shopper newspaper route that I complained vociferously about every week.  And, I've been a mom for 20 years. But still, although I've been watching the tornadoes pass since 5^th grade, I have only recently taken on these major adult signs of independence.  It’s overrated.  I’m ready to get rid of some of them, just as my eldest son is taking stock and adjusting his sails to adult winds. 

Independence is what we celebrate today, and the thing that I am reminded of on this day is that with independence comes responsibility.  Without going down some patriotic path, it behooves me to remember that the bricks of adult life – whatever they may be for each individual – are what we build our lives with.  And, dad isn't always going to be on the porch with us.  We have to tend to our own garbage cans.  The summer jobs, the classes, the relationships, the places to live, the hobbies, the games, the friends, the things we fill our time with – these are the independences that our lives are made of.  And, yes, indeed, if any wind is going to try and sweep things away, I do want to meet it.  In the meantime, though, I will try to help my son choose his bricks wisely while reconsidering my own.