Sitting on my porch this Monday morning, I want to slow the clock down. In one more week the alarm clocks will be set to an un-godly hour and I will resume my position as taskmaster, torturer, and angry cheerleader trying to get all seven of us out the door to school and work. I will also officially be the mother of a High School Senior, three middle-schoolers and one third-grader. Where has the time gone? I know it's not just me who feels that as we get older time goes by so much faster. Wasn't it just June yesterday after all?
As a kid, I remember feeling like the days of summer went on forever. I'd start my day with a healthy breakfast, in front of the TV, of Lucky Charms and Tang. Magically delicious and NASA-approved. Thinking back, I probably glowed in the dark a bit those days. I would then put on my favorite Smurfette tank top and shorts and head outside. There weren't always other kids to play with and I was the oldest of two by a lot of years but somehow I don't ever remember caring. I would keep myself busy with adventures I made up for Malibu Barbie and I in the swimming pool or perhaps a Jungle safari for her in the hosta that decorated our property line. There was ample time for jumping rope, or donning my Strawberry Shortcake roller skates and navigating the uneven and broken sidewalks. There were walks with my Pop-Pop to Colonial Market for an ice cream treat. My favorite was the cone you had to peel the paper off of to reveal the crushed-peanut-topping deliciousness. There were indoor memories too of sitting on a towel in the middle of the living room floor because I was still too damp from swimming and I just HAD to get in a game or two of Atari Pinball. Then I would drive the adults crazy as I talked into the giant window fan practicing my best Darth Vader impression. This usually got me sent promptly back outside. Sometimes the neighbor's grand kids would visit next door and their grandfather would line a large pit in the backyard with a plastic sheet and fill it with water. Nevermind the fact that I had a perfectly fine pool in my own yard, this make-shift inground pool was the most fun place to swim...ever.
I remember the smell of charcoal grills in the evenings. Suppers of burnt hot dogs followed by juicy, red-dripping watermelon. The adults would venture outside into my world as the sun started to make its way down in the sky. Sitting in their lawn chairs on the paved driveway, sipping Old-fashions (I can still smell the bittersweet orange peel), listening to the church bells play a familiar song. We would watch the sky over Passaic's smoke-stack-peppered skyline turn the colors of rainbow sherbet. Then I would fill plastic cups with as many lightening bugs as I could. Sometimes sadistically (or just child-like curiosity?) smearing their glow-in-the-dark bodies on my skin to make myself glow. I actually remember the deliciousness of sinking into the sheets that my mother had hung on the line that day, after an Avon Pink Bubbles, bubble bath. Nothing in the world, except maybe a newborn, smells as good as line-dried bed sheets.
I sometimes wonder how my kids' summer memories will measure up for them as they get older. I have more of an adventurous spirit than my own mother did so I know that we take more day trips to the shore or the lake or to go hiking than I did as a kid.I sometimes wonder if that makes their summer days speed along faster. There are definitely similarities to our summer experiences. Sure, their breakfast cereals are a bit less day-glo, they catch lightening bugs in mason jars not plastic cups, and their sunsets aren't watched over the smoke stacks of a crumbling industrial town. Still, there is swimming, ice cream, and yes, video games. Do my kids feel like their summer is flying by or do they, like I can remember my little-girl-self, get to August and feel as if summer has gone on forever? Do they, like I did, welcome the smells of opening a new box of crayons, and hearing those school bells ring? I know that nostalgia can paint things in a rosier glow than reality I just hope their summer memories are as warm as mine.
This last week of summer vacation I'll have the adult ability to try to savor the moments a little more. To take a conscious mental snapshot of mornings like today, sitting on my porch, surrounded by the chirping of the birds, the busyness of the bugs, the humming of my youngest as she comes out to join me in the dappled sunshine. When she wraps her tan little arms around my neck in a, "Good morning Mommy," hug and I can smell the sweetness of her sung-bleached hair. We giggle together at the noisiness of the cicadas. We'll take the time to point out the spider web shapes from last-night's trap and appreciate how its the prettiest sun-catcher we've ever seen. There will be no talk of school or work of next week, only plans for trips to Grandma's, giant ice cream cones and sandy toes at the shore. Hopefully it will be the longest week of our year.
.JPG) |
| Bed-head Charlotte |
