Holy man! Can you believe it? As of today (May 22), school’s out for summer here in our part of Georgia.
Memorial Day’s yet to be observed (meaning we shouldn’t even officially be wearing white shoes, right, you all?). Yet the azaleas have faded, and the oak leaf hydrangeas are popping. The pool has opened for the season, its renovations fresh, its water still cool. Kids’ squeals echo stridently off the cement. Moms and dads share their kids’ excitement. Yay for summer! At the same time, a grimace (or an occasional outright declaration) gives away that nagging feeling shared by many in parental silence: “Heaven help us all!”
This morning I had the privilege of taking one last lovely walk to the park to see my grandson and some neighbor kids off to school for the end of the 2018-19 academic year. It was last call for the school bus...until next fall, of course. The kids were bouncing off the sidewalk. (Well, not above. That pic is the second-to-last day, when they were slightly more contained.)
On this last morning, freedom was mere hours away. Forecasts of their summer journeys varied. One family was preparing for a move to Savannah. (I was touched that Ms. Roxanne, the bus driver, brought them a parting gift.) Inevitably, somebody mentioned their summer plans involved a trip to the beach. I’m not sure which beach. The Florida Panhandle is a popular destination.
Now I, too, love the beach, particularly the Panhandle. I love it in the spring or fall, not in the God awful dog-breath heat of summer. But here’s an amazing truth: Almost everyone else I know loves to do Florida in summer. ‘Tis the season, they’ll say while forking over a hefty premium. My own daughter and son-in-law are among these blazing-sun-and-sand worshipers. Power to ‘em. Maybe it’s my Michigan blood, but I just can’t do it. Not even for a week ocean-front with the grands. I. Just. Can’t.
It’s not that summer wasn’t once my favorite season. It was, back when I lived in God’s country during my formative years. Sally Hanes, one of my dearest junior high friends, would invite me to her family’s cottage on Hardwood Lake for a week or two each summer. During the early years of my visits, the Hanes’ cottage was small and rustic, with no indoor plumbing. We used the outhouse without a fuss, and we gladly pumped water from the creaky well for use in the kitchen at meal time. Over time, the Hanes family added indoor plumbing and a sleeping porch, and they converted the uphill garage into a bunk area with beds and an old piano.
God, how I loved my times at Hardwood Lake. Sometimes Sal and I would rise early to row to the foggy marsh to fish. Later we’d shave our legs in the pure lake water till they “felt like silk” and then soak up the sun on the dock, reading teen magazines. We water skied (she in a graceful slalom, me chopping over the wake like a bobble-head toy). We’d cruise in the boat in search of the “Green boat” guys, eventually anchoring near them on the other side of the lake. Cranking the tape deck, we’d sing at the top of our lungs to Chicago’s Just You and Me, or maybe a Beach Boys’ oldie.
Later, back at Sal’s dock, we’d lounge in the idle boat, challenging each other to a game of Battleship, the version before computers when you had to plot and play out your strategy on a piece of graph paper. Rarely, if ever, did we venture into town. The lake in summer was all we needed. It provided a season of respite, a time to slow down and catch one’s breath.
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Now days, summer no longer brings rest. The busiest family gets the prize. What can I say? Times change. These days, therefore, I measure my seasons differently. They no longer fill mere months on a calendar. Rather, they weave a colorful landscape, a beautiful messy life. In the spring of this life, when I was a mom, I grew easily frustrated when my kids’ personalities clashed with mine, when their peccadilloes caused the dominoes of my day to crash down around me. Now in the fall of my life, my role is that of a grand mom, or JJ, as I’m called.
What’s the difference between a mom (spring) and a JJ (fall)?
JJs have more patience for the kid who dawdles over breakfast. JJs don’t have to nag the kid to get ready to walk to the bus. (They have an Alexa to do the prompting for them.) JJs find the kid’s quirks amusing, and they take him to the pool on opening day. (Once upon a spring, when this JJ was not yet a grand mom, she’d choose a root canal over a trip to the pool on opening day. Hands down.)
But I digress.
School’s out for summer here in our part of Georgia. The water will soon turn hot as Hades up at the pool. That’s where you’re apt to find me, probably with the grands. Yay for summer? Yeah, right. It may be the fall of this JJ’s beautiful messy life, but still you may hear me mutter: “Heaven help us all!”
Cheers! Jan
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