Jen's Column / Summer

This is, you may remember, my "taking a hiatus from my real life" summer. I took steps to ensure this. I took the semester off from graduate school. I stepped back from some of my writing and volunteer commitments. Heck, I didn't even sign the kids up for baseball. (Was that a gasp I heard?! Don't worry, it hasn't seemed to stunt their development so far.)

The plan was to spend most of the summer at our cabin in the woods taking it easy. Laying low. Breathing deeply. Being one with… something. I figured I'd spend entire afternoons reading in a lawn chair, napping in the hammock, and effortlessly writing epic novels in my journal. I may have gone so far as to imagine bluebirds landing on my shoulder and singing into my ear.

It's a good theory for a weekend — or even a week — but eventually the dishes pile up. And at the cabin, they have to be done by hand. The dirty clothes pile up, too, and they have to be done at the Laundromat. And the kids, if you can believe it, want to eat — whole meals several times a day.

Of course there are also campfires to build and marshmallow sticks to sharpen and children to chase down with sunscreen. There are miniature birch bark canoes to make and sail down the Mississippi River. There is grass to mow and bug spray to bathe in (oh, glorious DEET). There are grandmas to visit, cousins to entertain, and — yes — running and swimming and biking to eke out if I'm going to get through this triathlon in August.

It's enough to keep one busy if busy is what one wants. And it turns out that no matter where I am — here or the cabin or at the at one of the dozens of Dairy Queens in between — I'm just not wired to lounge. You can take the Type A away from her schedule, but you can't take the schedule out of the Type A.

Don't think for one minute that I'm complaining. No way, no how. I'm having a fantastic summer. But I will say this: The time I've spent in the woods has made me appreciate the things I've taken for granted in "city life." Like carpeting. And water pressure. And overhead lights. I revel in these things when I come back home — I stand under the showerhead and think, "We live like kings! Kings!"

Here at home, I open the door to the refrigerator — and the light works. I go out on the deck to shake a rug, and horseflies don't circle my head. I pass Target on the way into town — a mere three miles from my house! — and I weep. Well, maybe I don't actually weep, but I do put my hand over my heart and shake my head in astonishment. "Imagine!" I say to the kids. "If we need toilet paper, we can just go get it."
And I have to say that despite the peace and solitude and privacy of life in the woods, the most memorable moment of my summer has been in our very own Rochester backyard.

It was my 10-year-old's birthday, and we went out for a family bike ride after his birthday dinner (which, at his request, consisted of noodles and Alfredo sauce, saltine crackers and jellied cranberry sauce). It was this great, temperate night and the four of us spent the ride laughing and talking. When we arrived back home, the boys played in the dusky backyard air while devouring fudgsicles from the garage freezer. My-seven-year old's face was chocolate from his nose down. My ten-year-old rode so high on the swing that every so often his head silhouetted against the moon.
"This is what summer is all about," I yelled from where I sat on the lawn. "Fudgsicles and swinging on a warm breezy evening."

As the night wound down, we sat together watching the flames in the fire pit. My birthday boy put his arm over mine and emitted what can only be called a contented sigh. It remains the sweetest sound I've ever heard.

"Remember this moment," I told him, resting my head against his. "This is summer."