I love summer: the warm sunny days playing in the river, pond, pool, etc. But how does one get any writing done when there is so much fun to be had? Because I am a stay-at-home mom, my summer is filled with activities to keep the kids busy. By August, I find myself missing the structure that the school year brings to our lives. I don't miss the rushing around in the morning to get there on time, or our short evenings together filled with homework and rushing them into bed so that they get enough sleep. But with the structure, it is so much easier for me to find a place to fit in the things that I want and need to do for myself - like exercise and writing.
I find myself questioning the whole idea of summer vacation. Why do kids need 3 continuous months off? I know the original reason for scheduling this huge break: our agricultural past demanded that the kids be available to work on the farms during the summer. But now kids can't find work - many adults can't either. So then we end up with all these kids out there with nothing to do for the summer. If they are lucky, their parents either don't have to work (maybe they work in the school system?) or can afford to put them in various camps throughout the summer. But a lot of kids are not that lucky. Their parents have to work, but they can't afford to do much for the kids. Looking into our future, I wonder how we will swing it.
When I was a kid, we spent summers at our grandparents' camp on the lake. We'd play in the water all day, or play games on the screened in porch. We were bored a lot. But looking back now, I see that we were some of the lucky ones. Now I am trying to raise my kids far away from any family and I see how hard that is, and how much easier it would be if my parents lived in the same town, and were retired with a lake house.
Another problem with summer is that Kiki always goes back east to visit her family and I don't hear from her nearly enough! How are your summers going? Do you find time to write? What do you think about summer vacation?
-Lori
Lovely post. And I'm sorry for being a rotten friend!
ReplyDeleteI too remember long, lazy summer days, full of nothing mostly, but fun anyway. I would spend a lot of time at my grandparents' house too, climbing the big maple tree, rolling down the hill, laying in the grass and eating wild raspberries. The wind would blow in the tall pine trees, cotton candy clouds would scud across the deep blue sky, and sometimes we went to York Beach.
Those are some of the best memories of my life. Thank you for reminding me!
Lori, day camps aren't always all they're cracked up to be. The best I can say about Aeryn's is that she gets to swim a lot - although she said tonight - just before she dropped off to sleep - that they didn't get to swim for more than a couple of minutes because someone puked in the pool on the other end. Everybody out! I'm not nearly as happy with this camp as I had hoped to be, so we'll be doing a lot of extra saving next year so she can go somewhere better. Or maybe lots of better somewheres.
ReplyDeleteIt's insanely hot, though. Car has no A/C. I manage much better in the cold than I do in heat - at least in a cold car you can bundle up. You can't do a goddamned thing about driving a crock pot. A sunshade helps. That's about it.
But Sunday I went to a new friend's house and picked two gallons of blueberries - fuckers just fell right into my waiting hands and I could have picked for another half an hour at least but I didn't have any more room in the buckets. And local peaches are in. And gold zucchini. And it's almost time for apples to come in, and for my daughter to turn seven.
Blessings and bitchings. As always.
Since the routine for us hasn't changed much, my writing routine hasn't, either. I still stay up late to write, although lately the husband, the dog and the cat have all been ganging up on me and herding me to bed when THEY think it's time for me to quit. Assholes. Wouldn't trade them for anything.