Until this year, every fall brought a feeling of anticipation. Crisp air, cool evenings, new school supplies.
As long as I didn’t linger on nostalgic thoughts of easy friendships, endless potential, and running with my college cross country team – a couple of aspects of younger me that I sometimes wish I had back – I could dive into the possibilities of a new school year. I would try not to pay too much attention to the darker mornings and the briefer evenings. As summer closed, I would frenetically finish house projects so they wouldn’t tempt me once I started the homeschool year.
Then came this year. This summer, the Chaplain and I poured so much into our relationship. I estimate we covered about 270 miles this summer walking together in the evenings. We wore out the Chaplain’s shoes and got into shape. We finally, finally got some ease back into our relationship.
We went on adventures this summer. A trip to the beach. Trips to Grafton Lakes. A camping trip. All these little moments of family time, all the time outside, had put me in touch with the world in a way I haven’t been in a long time. As the days were getting shorter, I noticed.
When we had been living in our house for a few years, our next door neighbor greeted me over the fence, Wilson Wilson style. “Did you know you had a skunk living under your front porch?”
No, I didn’t. But we smelled skunk with some regularity, so it didn’t surprise me.
When I was a kid, we had a skunk living under our front porch. It was a white skunk with a black stripe, which was in keeping with my need to be different. So I was a little enchanted to find that as an adult with my own home (a bungalow very like the one I lived in growing up) that I also had a skunk living under my porch.
I identified where the skunk was going in and out. We saw it snuffling around the backyard a few times after dark. Early one morning, I discovered that there were two skunks, one mostly black, and one mostly white (fantastic!). One of them and I had a very uncomfortable stand off, with tail raised on its part and terror on mine, before we were finally able to break the tension and make a run for it.
I’ve been on a bit of a quest lately to collect magical moments. A dear friend suggested that I be a little more open-minded about what those moments look like, and I took her advice. This open-mindedness means looking for adventure, and saying yes more often.
Last night, we went to Grafton Lakes State Park. It’s just a tiny bit longer than I like to drive, but it was the last day of summer vacation while also being the first day of school (since we homeschool, we can have our cake and eat it, too). The day called for a special ending.
One thing that was on my Summer Bucket List that we hadn’t done yet was go bathing at the beach.
I remember what a big deal it was to go to the beach as a kid. We lived on the bank of a river, so we regularly got a water fix, but there is something you get at the ocean that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s like synchronizing your heartbeat with God’s as the rhythm of the waves moves through you.
I was working myself up to writing about shame when my three-year-old, Six, came in the house howling. He was covered in dirt, with the epicenter somewhere near his face. I heaved him up over the edge of the kitchen sink, trying to rinse the dirt out of his eyes, but quickly realized a more extreme approach would be called for.
Taking him under my arm in a football hold, I charged into the bathroom and started the water running while Six screamed, begging me not to use the sprayer. But this was a job for the sprayer. A bath just wasn’t going to do it. His scalp was covered in dirt, and it was stuck to his neck and all over his face. Five did it, he claimed angrily.
I soaped him up and came after him with the sprayer, trying to avoid his face. Six is a fan of only one type of bathing – the type that doesn’t involve getting his face or hair wet. I braced myself, and his screaming reached a crescendo.
