Summer, you are killing me
Oh summer. Summer summer. Summer! I love you and you are killing me with your demands, with your late nights and early mornings, your travel time spent in highway traffic going to far-flung soccer tournaments, swim meets, and beaches, and I realize how privileged that sounds — and is — but I’ve been to Toronto (twice), Ancaster, London (twice), Kincardine, Ottawa, Sauble Beach, and Kingston in the last five weeks, and if I have to spend another kilometre on the road I might dissolve into genuine rage. Or tears. I might come undone. Oh wait, summer, you’re sending me to Elora tonight for a soccer match in a rainstorm. Okay. I will do it. There’s seems no other way but through.
Summer, there’s more. I know I’m putting this all on you, but I have to tell you. You are killing me with your lack of school. It’s my own fault that I have four children. I take full responsibility for that. But there’s no substitute for school. Despite no lack of planning and foresight, summer, these four children, or some combo thereof, have taken over the house all day long. And for large portions of the evening too. I’ve started going to bed before some of them do. They are right this second making themselves elaborate lunches in the kitchen. I can’t even discuss the state of the living-room.
And the laundry. I weep.
I have told my four children to leave me alone for twenty minutes, which, frankly, seems a lot to ask given all the elaborate lunch-making currently underway. I am going to my office, I cried, and you must pretend that I am not here for twenty minutes!
I see my time is nearly up.
I am about to get in the car and drive to another set of swim lessons.
I have a message from a publisher, waiting, regarding a book cover. I have a magazine pitch to work up on a story I’m really excited to dig into — on women in sports. I have an essay waiting to be finished. Not to mention the book-writing writing that is on-going, and that I try to make an every-day event, but which is suddenly — summer, this really is on you — a rare occasion, shoved into corners, typing away in a car at a soccer field behind a high school in Elora. You know? It isn’t ideal. I don’t think it’s conducive to top flight work, summer.
And what of the lounging with gin & tonics, summer? Can you slide that in somewhere, please? Could you give me an evening out with my husband to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary? Could you let me lie around and read a book?
I’m putting this all on you, summer, but I get it, I do. I’m the one setting the course, running the race, putting in the miles. While you while away. So maybe it’s not you; maybe it’s me. Whatever, as the kids say. What’s clear is this: one of us is killing the other.
Life skills
Summer is here. And I am not, so much, here.
I keep taking photos of everywhere we go, and everything we do, but my photo computer is dying a long slow death (probably caused by the photos), making processing next to impossible. And time is of the essence. I wonder who first expressed that phrase. Time is of the essence. Could it have been Shakespeare? AppleApple and I listened to Bill Bryson’s biography of Shakespeare on our long drive this weekend. We both got a kick out of it.
She and I were in Ottawa all weekend for provincials. She won a silver medal with her relay team, and achieved personal bests in all of her swims, making for a happy time at the pool. (I watched World Cup matches on a TV hung on the wall just outside the pool deck doors, which, I won’t lie, was an awesome way to see the games — instant community.) Out of the pool, we walked to Parliament Hill, spent time with family, and I went for early morning runs along the Rideau Canal. “You should have brought your running shoes!” I said on the first evening, picturing a mother-daughter jog beside the still waters, and she said, “Mom, do you remember why we’re here? My coach said I’m not supposed to run before races!” Oh, right. Swimming. Not holidaying. I’m glad I forgot for a bit. I’m glad it felt like a holiday.
While we were away, my baby went off to camp for the first time. Two nights. And I wasn’t even there. I miss him in a way that I can’t even express so I’m trying instead to suppress. Know what I mean? “Mom, I think he’s handling this better than you are.”
School is out. It’s hot.
I need more alone time. I’m wearing ear plugs. We have a lost library book to deal with and a wrong-sized swim suit to return and swim lessons starting today. I have no idea how I will get any work done this summer; or more specifically, today, or on any day this coming week. I’m feeling slightly afraid; also overwhelmed. With everyone around it seems like there is less time to be writer-me. I can figure this out, right?
I’m on the cover of the summer edition of Quill & Quire. It may be out, in fact, but I haven’t seen it yet, I’ve only seen this, posted on Twitter by Stacey May Fowles:
Wrote about the charming and insightful @carrieasnyder and Girl Runner for @quillandquire. cc @HouseofAnansihttp://instagram.com/p/pyqO1djjyz/Kevin mopped the house while we were away. It looks incredibly clean.
He also decided we should teach the kids LIFE SKILLS this summer. How to clip your own nails. How to poach an egg. How to make a smoothie and clean the counter afterwards. Etc. Things they should probably already know, but perhaps don’t, that we expect them to know intuitively, but they just don’t. He should be in charge more often.
Wordless Wednesday goes to the beach
Snapshots, here and there
I have such beautiful photos from our time at my brother and sister-in-law’s farm this weekend. You’d never guess there were swarms of mosquitos, which is the beauty of photographs. They transport you somewhere else without physical immersion, and that is also their downside, I suppose, too. You’re there, but not there.
We were there.
And now we’re not.
I’m spending these last few days before school’s out working rather frantically to organize myself for the summer. I’ve got a long list of must-does and want-to-does and due dates. Posting to the blog is a want-to-do. I’ve decided to do it even though it means not neglecting a must-do. Even though it will be done in a rush before I need to meet the school bus.
Snapshot: yesterday, 8:35PM. Home.
I pull into the driveway with AppleApple. We climb out of vehicle, her loaded with soccer gear, me with rain gear and computer. Dogs at the door barking frantically. “Knock,” I direct her, searching for keys. “Why am I knocking?” “Your brother should be home from his party. He’s here.”
Van pulls into driveway. Kevin and Fooey and CJ emerge from friends’ vehicle, Kevin loaded with soccer gear, Fooey with soccer gear, CJ with school backpack.
Brother opens door. Frantic barking. “Someone let the dogs outside!” More frantic barking. “Not out the front door!”
Pile of wet soccer cleats, socks, and shin pads blocks front hall, along with school backpacks. I stumble in. Fooey reports on game. CJ reports on something I can’t take in. Everyone hungry. “How was the pool party?” I want to know. “Was it rained out?”
AppleApple and I sit down to eat cold supper. Fooey reads out loud from her report card; coincidentally it is the section on reading. I prevent AppleApple from pointing out the irony, as Fooey struggles with the big words. CJ opens his report card, stacks pieces of paper beside my plate, moans that Fooey is taking too long. Kevin emerges from dragging soccer balls to basement, makes CJ a bedtime snack. I interrupt Fooey to summarize CJ’s report card out loud. Fooey complains. I read part of her report card out loud. She gets to work filling out her section of the report card.
I clear food off table. Kevin starts school lunches.
Fooey and CJ argue in the bathroom over who gets to brush teeth first. I try to gather up everyone’s loose bits of report cards and pile them together. Haul up laundry basket from basement. Wipe down table. Pick CJ up. Wait while CJ updates Kevin on the outcomes of recess soccer games; too much detail. Arm muscles fading. Carry CJ, still reporting on recess soccer games, upstairs. Tuck CJ in. Try to convince CJ to stop talking. Point out time: good grief, it’s 9:27! Retreat. Return. Retreat.
Tuck in Fooey.
Invite son downstairs to report further on pool party and open report card. Son comes down. Report card scrutinized. Questions about party asked. Start folding laundry on the dining-room table. “Is that all the questions?” “I might have a few more …” “If that’s all the questions, I’m going upstairs.” Forget to remind him to brush his teeth.
Notice AppleApple on couch, doing email. “Are you still up? Aren’t you swimming in the morning?” “Am I?” “I’ll check with your coaches.” Email coaches. Coach confirms practice. Child goes to bed.
“How many days of laundry is this? Look at this basket. It’s not even half-empty.” Despairingly observe it’s after 10PM.
Kevin doing dishes.
Discussion of … soccer, news items, report cards, flotsam and jetsam.
Laundry folded. Remember there’s another load in the drier. Decide to forget I’ve remembered. Set alarm for 5AM. Don’t decide to forget to comment on and sign report cards; just forget. The dogs are still up. The dishes are done. And there’s still time to read in bed.
Favourite moment of the day
Pouring my coffee this morning, I thought, this is my favourite moment of the day — the smell of the warm coffee, the anticipation of sitting down at my computer and tasting the first sip.
But then it occurred to me that my day is full of favourite moments.
Some are ritualistic in their daily repetition, such as the cup of coffee.
Others alight out of the blue, like sitting beside CJ on the stairs well after his bedtime while he tries to remember what worry he was going to ask me about, what worry is keeping him from staying in his bed and falling asleep, his face in profile to mine, fixed in thought, and it feels like I could go on looking at him forever without ever tiring of the sight of him in the late-evening half-light coming through the window. At last he says: “Why do we have to lose our baby teeth and then grow adult teeth? Why aren’t we just born with adult teeth?”
This is my favourite moment. And this. And this.
Leaping in the air to cheer my daughter who is suddenly rocketing into second place with a pure blast of speed as she comes around the bend at the end of the 800-metre race. Somehow, on the straightaway, her face turns toward mine, from the track to the stands, and it feels like our eyes lock and I can see the fatigue caused by her effort, and I am telling her that she can keep going, she can do it, and she is telling me that she already knows this, wordlessly, and the image becomes fixed in my mind in a way that feels quite permanent.
An email out of the blue from a senior editor at a major Canadian magazine, asking me to consider writing for them — goosebumps.
The light in the early morning as we approach solstice.
The scent of peonies in bloom.
Talking to a loved one, even though they’re not having a good day, knowing a loved one feels comfortable talking to me, even though they’re not having a good day.
Seeing a 4:10-kilometre split while out-running a thunder storm at soccer practice. Saying to my daughter after we’ve dashed to the car through driving rain, now I’m going to go for an under 4-minute kilometre. Just one. And she says, you can do it!
And anything seems possible.