Where I’m writing from (above).

Poolside, underneath a wonky umbrella, at a picnic table, with birds cheeping from a ventilation system nearby, and the sound of water moving rhythmically in the 50-metre pool. My eldest is taking a lifeguarding course, three hours every morning for the next two weeks. I decided to stay, this morning, and work here.
Where I was on Saturday (above).

I spent the better part of the day driving to and from the overnight camp where our kids have been going for many summers. I picked up the girls, who had been away for the week and were in varying stages of tired and hungry and happy. We stopped at a diner on the way home. Driving almost defines my summer so far, but this week and next will be a different flavour: swimming pools, staying close to home.

Maybe we’ll have more of this, too (above).

Yesterday, the kids spontaneously decided to make supper in two teams: boys v girls. Boys made dessert, girls made the main meal. They plan to switch it up for another evening this week. Kevin took them shopping for ingredients. I offered a few tips (such as you don’t have to tape parchment paper into a cake pan!!!), but mostly tried to stay the heck out of the kitchen, and let them follow their recipes and help each other out. I even went for a run to avoid the hovering. Unfortunately, it was hot and I kept having to stop and walk, which couldn’t have been fun for my running partner, who was totally fine. We made it 10 km, but I was all kinds of pitiful. I kept fantasizing that someone might have dropped a water bottle near the path, or maybe I’d see a puddle, or maybe that guy on the bike is carrying water and I can ask him for a drink … Moral of the story: on hot days, carry some damn water, Carrie.

The meal I returned to: French onion soup, caesar salad, and oreo-shaped cake for dessert with freshly whipped cream. Best of all, the food was excellent. The judges ruled that the teams had tied. Points for everyone. (CJ has been giving himself points lately: a point for feeding the fish, a point for emptying the dishwasher, watering the plants, reading a book, brushing teeth, practicing soccer, etc. etc. I like this very much. The simple self-reward.)

These three are home for the morning together (above).

This is a possible illustration of what’s happening right now. Jenga turned into a housing complex. Bananagrams as furniture. Go-go people. Random cars. And some ukulele playing. On Sunday morning AppleApple and I sat and played our ukuleles for at least an hour, leaning toward folk and spiritual songs. She wants to learn how to sing harmony, inspired by the musically talented counsellors at camp. She also may have a broken collarbone, but that’s another story. I will fill you in later this week when we get x-ray results, but it looks like that injury during the soccer tournament was more serious than we’d realized. A reminder than comfortably held patterns and assumptions may experience unexpected breaks.

How to roll with it? How to comfort anxiety? How to let yourself be carried along peacefully with the new direction of the flow? Always learning. Playing and singing spirituals seemed like a good way to go, yesterday morning.

xo, Carrie

PS Here’s what I’ve been clicking on, reading, and listening to this week: From Those People, a personal piece on race and unrecognized, unacknowledged privilege. I think this is a necessary read, especially if you have white skin; from the NPR, setting goals by writing about them; from The New Yorker, free podcasts of fiction writers reading and then discussing a favourite short story published in the magazine. AppleApple and I listened to two while driving together: Nathan Englander reading John Cheever’s The Enormous Radio, and Paul Theroux reading Elizabeth Taylor’s “The Letter Writers.” (No, not that Elizabeth Taylor.) One final link: from Hazlitt, I enjoyed reading Dreams Are Boring, by Sasha Chapin, about the romanticized and false link between madness and inspiration.