Summer Love

Now that I have quite a few summers under my belt, I know that each one has a different flavor.  Two summers ago, we had our big checklist of fun and exciting things to do.  Best summer ever, until the next year.  Last year was Preposterous Plan, the massive road trip.

This summer hasn't exactly taken on a character yet, but I can tell you that I don't want to make a list, and we're not going on a 24-day road trip, so it's going to evolve into another variation of summer, one that I love already.  In some ways, summer hasn't started in earnest.  Yes, we go to Cherry Hill and/or the pool every day, but it's wedged in between the usual 30 dance classes a week, all of our music lessons, teaching, the last week of play practice (every night for 4 hours) and now the girls' camps.  We're still finding our groove.  With the play next week and the ballet recital the week after that, and then European visitors coming to stay the rest of the summer, my biggest fear is that the whole thing will fly by too quickly.

I'm scared of that because I sense this magical moment we're in, with all the kids still at home, our parents healthy and close by, Nana still up the hill with her stately home and Oreo cookies, friends we love, and a house that can wait, clean and cool, once our chores and practicing are done, while we eat our meals al fresco between laps around the Lazy River.  It's nirvana here, it really is, and we live in such a state of peace and beauty that I feel like the Spirit is close by, anytime I pray.  There is no chaos, no political upheaval, no ugliness between here and heaven.

Tonight as I left Cherry Hill with Ptolemy and Xanthe, the light was that perfect pink-yellow on the mountains.  I spread out my arms and said, as I have said before, "Guys, someday you'll move away, and then you'll come back here and you'll say, 'My beautiful mountains!  I missed you!'"  I dabbed a tear.  Xanthe was quick to reply, "I'm going to just stay here.  Well, I'll go on trips and leave my husband home with the children because that would just be a pain to take them."  Way to kill the moment, Xanthe!  She also said the other day when 4 of the kids were gone, "We should just have three kids because everything would be so much cleaner, and it's so quiet."

So maybe one person's peace and tranquility is her daughter's noisy, tumultuous, crazy life, packed with too many bodies.  But this is my sweet spot, right here, with everyone around me.  Just looking back at those two posts from 2012 and 2013 brings on a sense of despair that already so much time is gone, and so much more is slipping away, every second.  The best we can do is notice moments, make connections, give love, and know in the end that we did all we could to love in the time we had.

That's all that's on my list this summer.