Have you ever returned home from a week long vacation feeling like you could really use a vacation? Like you need a vacation from your vacation? That is how we’re feeling this first day of September. We started the summer with such high hopes! So many plans! So much energy! Now here we are on the other side wondering where the time went and why we didn’t do more.
Sometime in July we lost all motivation. We started spending whole days just lounging around the backyard, not getting anything done, unless you count beer drinking. My neglected kitchen slowly accumulated dust. We couldn’t even find it in us to mow the lawn more than once a month. In the morning we’d wander down the back steps to turn on the sprinklers for the garden, and then back again to turn them off. We’d sit with our coffee and watch the dew evaporate before going out for lunch. On the hotter days we’d turn the sprinklers on again in the afternoon and try to pursued Cheeks that wetter is better when it comes to summer afternoons. Then we’d order pizza. And beer.
Anyway, after a couple months of that we’re starting to feel like we need a vacation. The kind of vacation with no boundaries. The only kind of vacation that could feel like a break after the summer that we’ve had. We sit around and dream about days spent roaming, discovering new places, loving old places, and perhaps most importantly, not being at home.
I enjoyed a few days last week in San Francisco with a great friend. After returning home (and resting for a couple days, trying to overcome a head cold) I finally made my way back into the kitchen. Normally our lives revolve around the kitchen, it was the first room Cheeks could identify. We’d spend hours a day in there, baking, frying, boiling, drinking, chatting. I even considered putting a cushy armchair in the corner. So, last night, after I’d gathered a huge bowl full of basil from the garden, I found myself at the sink, methodically stemming and rinsing, and thinking that I felt very much like I was getting my groove back. It was like momentarily sticking my head above the clouds. A break from the lazy, new ordinary. And still, as I was chopping and toasting, I was wishing for a family adventure. Something that would take us away from our ordinary, old or new.
As our days start to cool again, we’re slowly moving back into our old ways. The chores are getting done, we’re cooking our meals, we’re returning to our hobbies, and we’re realizing that it’s not summer that we’re chasing after all. It’s freedom that we’re looking for. And the occasional good pint.
p.s. The pesto was scrumptious, and well worth all that work.
“It’s a piece of paper.
It’s a piece of paper.
It’s a piece of paper.
A piece of paper.
A piece of…
And a DRAGON!
A DRAAAAAGOOOOON!!!”
It’s 9 AM. We’ve just finished breakfast and Cheeks is already jumping on the sofa, pink hippo in hand. I look up from my coffee…
“Sit down, please.”
“No.”
“OK. Then, get down.”
“No.”
“Are you going to have another bad day?”
“Yes. Going time out. ALL DAY!”
He stands up, stiffens, and falls forward onto a throw pillow. When his giggling stops he slides off the edge, sticks his finger up his nose, and stares me down.
Seconds later, apparently satisfied with his attempt at taunting, he takes off running, gaining as much speed as he can in the house. He stops with a skid when he gets to my chair, smears something into my palm, and takes off again. When he gets to the bathroom he slams the door and locks himself in.
I look down to see what he’s left in my hand.
A booger. Awesome.
My desk is surrounded by what was once the contents of neatly filled toy box. The likely culprit is “resting” in his room, with his feet on the door. He’s singing. Our kitchen smells vaguely of garlic and dirty dish rag, both the dishwasher and the sink are full of dirty dishes, the fridge is overflowing with expired goods. The piles of laundry in our bedroom are quickly merging from “clean” and “dirty” into “to-be-sorted” and “this doesn’t really smell dirty.” Outside, the garden is a tangled mess of bind weed, vegetable, melon, and basil. The yard, where it gets water from the garden, is growing into a forest of weeds, the rest is brown and dying. The kiddie pool is slowly leaking out the remaining water from a massive thunderstorm of two days ago. Two (not one but TWO) sets of kid clothes were left on the porch to dry yesterday after Cheeks decided (twice) that a fully clothed swim in his rain-fed pool was just what his overheated little body needed. Who was I to argue? All those cloths are still laying there, suspiciously stiff. If anyone asks I plan to say, “Oh! Are they dry already?” As if they’ve been there for minutes rather than days.
This is how things have been this summer. If I have to choose between peanut butter and jelly or spaghetti dinner, I choose peanut butter. If there is a pile of dishes and a new book, I choose the new book. If there are weeds overtaking my onions I pick the onions and leave the weeds. My to do list looks like this:
From that I imagine you can understand why when I look to my left I see a book, stripped of it’s binding, hiding under a plastic dog, and when I look to my right I see that binding laying in a torn and crumpled mess on a bike seat. A book purposefully unbound. How’s that for metaphor?