I've Loved These Days

Summer's over. School's in session. My house is quiet. Very. Very. Quiet.

I can't say I particularly like the quiet -- at least until Hannah and Liz get off the bus and make it all noisy again. Then I kind of miss the quiet.

Our summer was decidedly UNquiet and I loved every loud moment of it. I remember loving summer as a kid, and then looking forward to the start of the school year even though it meant that, after two-and-a-half months of going barefoot I was going to have to shove my tough and calloused toes into stiff, leather shoes.

The summers of my childhood basically consisted of playing with neighborhood children -- children played outside all the time back then, running from yard to yard like unleashed dogs -- or fighting with my sisters. When I got older, summer meant going to the American Legion Pool in Katonah, eating Italian Ices or blue Popsicles at the pool, or watching game shows and soap operas on warm afternoons.

By the time school was getting ready to start I seriously missed my out-of-the-neighborhood friends and really wanted to see them. For a day at least. And that meant putting on the stiff shoes and waiting until the leather broke down and began to feel comfortable. There was always a day or two of limping.

I pretty much wear Crocs most of the time now, so the beginning of the school year isn't so much literally getting my feet conditioned for the start of school, but rather ready for a pair of figurative shoes. Summer is fun around here and it takes a few days for me to break in the fall.

You've read the highlights from our summer: vacations, Hershey Park, tent camping, etc. etc. But summer for me is really in the details. The time spent laughing on the hammock, eating the giant ice cream cones at Kolb's Dairy, learning to dive in our community pool, trying to keep the dog from eating our dinner before we get to barbecue it. Laughing. Lots and lots of laughing. Just last week I was talking to Lizzie about the summer and she told me that she liked everything about it and added, "we sure like to laugh, don't we Mommy?"

And we do.

I'm sure the fall will have a lot to laugh about, too. Although getting up at 7 a.m. again is simply not fun no matter how I try to spin it.

So the first day of school was not happy for me, although the girls loved it, anxious as they were to see friends, meet new teachers and wear their new clothes.

They happily stored their summer memories somewhere in their brains and pushed forward, coming home with stories of classmates and art and music and the invisible bucket their teachers told them they'd spend the year filling with good works and friendship.

It's been four days they've been back in school and I've begun to remember that I do love my work, my friends, my volunteering, too. It's hard to give up my languid Mommy-only summers for the brisk, challenging rhythm of fall, but there is joy there, too. Already, the shoes are pinching less.

Because I've learned that soon enough, with time going at break-neck speed as it does with kids in the house, we'll all be barefoot on the hammock telling jokes (and hope springs eternal that Hannah will actually GET the jokes then...) and laughing in the lazy sunshine again.

For now I will embrace the quiet, rev up for those new fall rhythms, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other until these new shoes are a comfortable as bare feet in the grass.