My house is a disaster. There are books and craft supplies on the floor of every room. And I have zero motivation to do anything about it.
My mind is swirling with things that need to happen in the next 24 hours. Clothes and food to pack. A car to clean. Essays to write for my critique group. Chapters to read. Laundry to do. And not one of those things feels optional.
If I don’t do the laundry, it will stink to high heaven when we get back. If I don’t read my chapters or write my pieces, I lose out on the one gift I’ve given myself this year. If I don’t pack … well, then we’ll be on vacation in a beautiful place … naked and hungry. And no one wants that.
We leave for Cape Cod tomorrow and I’ve done no packing or planning. This is an unusual trip for us. The first few days we’ll be in a motel, and then we’re camping in a yurt. Our previous trips to the Cape have been tent camping, and we’ve never lasted more than a night or two. After discovering cabin camping last summer, I made David promise he’d never make us sleep in a tent again (unless I beg him, and then he’ll oblige because he’s so good to me).
We’re taking a day trip to Martha’s Vineyard. And a day trip to Provincetown. And we’ll do a lot of biking and swimming in kettle ponds and reading in between. I have no idea what we’ll eat, or how we’ll use this week’s farm share. It’s not like me to leave planning until the last minute.
But for a few moments this morning, I simply allow myself to sit and breathe. To listen to the birds singing. I hear an oriole off in the distance. As the wind swishes through the daylily leaves in my front garden bed, the neighbors’ sprinklers turn on; watering grass that is so bright green it almost looks fake.
There’s a family of robins rustling in their nest in the rhododendron behind me. One baby was there a few days ago—there are more now. We wonder if the first baby was a cowbird rather than a robin. We’ve seen some cowbirds in the yard, so we know they are around. They are the bully of the birds. I never knew much about birds until I started homeschooling the girls. I learn just as much from teaching them as they learn from me.
The cool wind rushes over my hair, wet from my morning shower, and chill bumps form on my arms. Early summer is always like this in New England. Some days are brilliantly hot with clear skies and sunshine. On others, the sun stays hidden under a tent of clouds and the wind brings a chill, sending me inside to grab a cozy sweatshirt.
Massachusetts lifted all of its covid restrictions last weekend. No more capacity limits. No more mask requirements. While I still have slight worries about the risk to my kids, especially indoors, it feels mostly safe to go back to normal. Acknowledging there’s always a risk, we don’t want to be reckless, but we also don’t want fear to guide our decisions. We live in a place where the rates are low, there’s relatively low risk to kids, and the weather is finally warming up. So this summer we’re celebrating a return to some of our favorite pre-pandemic summer traditions: crowded beaches, a Cape camping trip, a dance recital, my book club, and Gloucester Block Parties.
We were eating dinner on our porch a few nights ago when I asked everyone to share one thing they want to do this summer. Autumn wants to have a picnic with her dance friends. Eden wants to have a birthday party and invite friends to play. With a piñata. David wants to be brave enough to swim in the ocean and maybe float there for a while. He’s crazy for that—water in New England is nothing like water in the Gulf of Mexico—but it’s his summer too, so if he wants to swim in icy water, I will cheer him on.
I want to teach the girls how to blow bubbles with Bubble gum. And make plans for the future. It sounds funny to be excited about planning for the future, but after a year of being afraid to plan because something might get canceled, it feels good to look forward to the future again.
What’s one thing you want to do this summer?