I have no photos of a lovely, busy summer. I mean, I have them, but they are on Martin's phone and I need to download them onto my computer. And as I have not yet done that, I have no photos. Instead of waiting for my technical aspirations to fruit into action, here I am, posting.
I am sitting on the grey couch in the living room, in a patch of sunlight. On the table to my right, yellow and pink zinnias, golden heads of yarrow, a bright purple cosmos bloom. Outside, the girls browse the garden for butterflies--ruffly red hollyhock towers, soft pink snapdragons, snappy black-eyed susans.
Truly I must pause here and tell you about the new cosmos I planted this year. Generally I am opposed to new-fangled improvements on a solid classic, but this spring I found my fingers straying toward a packet of fancy, double cosmos. And let me tell you, they are just frivolous and happy, like the skirts of flower-girl dresses. They look like miniature peony blooms. I would take a photo but people like me don't post photos, apparently.
Ah, the girls are in with a great foot-stomping on the front stairs. They have found a butterfly and are trying to ease it into the net cage. They put their fingers out on a bloom and wait for the butterfly to put his thin black feelers on their fingertip and then they shout victory. There is nothing like a butterfly on your finger--
unless perhaps it is a bee on your finger. Earlier this summer the girls were walking about the garden with big, fat fuzzy bees on their fingers, declaring that these bees were nice bees, not the sort that would sting you. I pointed out that it is not a matter of a bee's niceness that determines whether it stings or not; bees are bees, and they all sting if they need to. But they did not believe me--
until Beatrix sustained a rather nasty bee sting, over which my brother-in-law the doctor presided with great fascination. "She came in with the bee attached to her finger and I'm afraid I didn't pull the stinger out as fast as I should have--I just watched the stinger pumping in poison. Amazing!" We all looked at the stinger through a magnifying glass.
Bea just came in begging for a milk jug in which to store crickets. She pulled a buttermilk bottle out of the recycling, took a whiff, and scrunched up her nose. "Oh, it smells so bad in that," she said, then grabbed a tupperware and ran back out the door. At first she wanted duct tape but that is in the garage, where our two-month guest, a thirteen-year old boy, is installed at the moment. (He and his father, that is, but his father is at work and C, his son, is seeking the shadowy garage as refuge from the four girls in our house).
We converted half our garage into a guest room--put up heavy curtains and laid down nice thick floor rugs after painting the floor and walls. Thankfully there's already a window and drywalled walls with outlets, so it feels less like a garage and more like a real room. It has been occupied all summer long. All. Summer. Long.
And at the end of the summer, we are entirely out of money, so much so that we are determined to spend almost nothing if we can help it. So we are eating food out of the garden--cucumbers and tomatoes and kale--and stuff from our freezer and overflowing pantries, and it all feels fun rather than like a hardship. I mean, occasionally I am tired of living like we're still in graduate school at almost 40, but then I think of what values we are keeping intact instead of becoming comfortable financially and that helps it feel more like an adventure. Besides, there are our age-counterparts in Greece and now China in the soup kitchen lines, so I am well aware of the great blessings of a beautiful house in a beautiful part of the world, living without debt, and enjoying many privileges, including being able to feed our family, pay our bills, and sleep well at night. And it is a real gift to be able to spend a couple years at least writing and being available for the children when they leave for school and come home at the end of school.
Speaking of writing, Maple is done and off with an agent earlier this month (two weeks ago, perhaps), but there's no word back yet on that--which is not unusual, actually, so I'm cooling my heels until school starts a week from tomorrow, when I'll go back to a disciplined writing schedule again. I have another book I've been working on, which needs a huge rewrite--
"Summer is the perfect time to catch crickets," Bea just came in, sat on a rattan chair, and announced. Then they told me crickets like meal worms, which move quickly "depending on what mood they're in," Elspeth interjected, and then Eliora came in with a huge bowl brimming with cherry tomatoes. Charley is sitting in the shade, watching everything in a resigned sort of way. He is looking forward to the end of summer, I think, when his schedule will return: ride to school to drop off the kids, walk, sleep, get a pat while I eat lunch, sleep, and pick up the kids. He is a dog of routine. He thrives on predictability.
Merry, who is sitting in the kitchen decorating her new binder, is also looking forward to the beginning of school. She is a girl of routine, of challenge and schedules and academia. She relishes the thought of afternoons of soccer and homework and early mornings of band practice and jazz ensemble. She was dizzy with giddiness two days ago when we got out of the car to do our school supply shopping. I thought she was going to levitate with delight, just thinking about those new mechanical pencils, file folders, and college-ruled notepaper.
"If I knew your name and address, I'd bring you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils." Name that movie!
NPR news just took over the swanky jazz I was enjoying so I will bring this post to a close.
The children are all blissfully unaware of stock market corrections. They are outside, thinking of nothing more than cricket capture an cherry tomato harvests. Excellent. It is just as it should be.
I am sitting on the grey couch in the living room, in a patch of sunlight. On the table to my right, yellow and pink zinnias, golden heads of yarrow, a bright purple cosmos bloom. Outside, the girls browse the garden for butterflies--ruffly red hollyhock towers, soft pink snapdragons, snappy black-eyed susans.
Truly I must pause here and tell you about the new cosmos I planted this year. Generally I am opposed to new-fangled improvements on a solid classic, but this spring I found my fingers straying toward a packet of fancy, double cosmos. And let me tell you, they are just frivolous and happy, like the skirts of flower-girl dresses. They look like miniature peony blooms. I would take a photo but people like me don't post photos, apparently.
Ah, the girls are in with a great foot-stomping on the front stairs. They have found a butterfly and are trying to ease it into the net cage. They put their fingers out on a bloom and wait for the butterfly to put his thin black feelers on their fingertip and then they shout victory. There is nothing like a butterfly on your finger--
unless perhaps it is a bee on your finger. Earlier this summer the girls were walking about the garden with big, fat fuzzy bees on their fingers, declaring that these bees were nice bees, not the sort that would sting you. I pointed out that it is not a matter of a bee's niceness that determines whether it stings or not; bees are bees, and they all sting if they need to. But they did not believe me--
until Beatrix sustained a rather nasty bee sting, over which my brother-in-law the doctor presided with great fascination. "She came in with the bee attached to her finger and I'm afraid I didn't pull the stinger out as fast as I should have--I just watched the stinger pumping in poison. Amazing!" We all looked at the stinger through a magnifying glass.
Bea just came in begging for a milk jug in which to store crickets. She pulled a buttermilk bottle out of the recycling, took a whiff, and scrunched up her nose. "Oh, it smells so bad in that," she said, then grabbed a tupperware and ran back out the door. At first she wanted duct tape but that is in the garage, where our two-month guest, a thirteen-year old boy, is installed at the moment. (He and his father, that is, but his father is at work and C, his son, is seeking the shadowy garage as refuge from the four girls in our house).
We converted half our garage into a guest room--put up heavy curtains and laid down nice thick floor rugs after painting the floor and walls. Thankfully there's already a window and drywalled walls with outlets, so it feels less like a garage and more like a real room. It has been occupied all summer long. All. Summer. Long.
And at the end of the summer, we are entirely out of money, so much so that we are determined to spend almost nothing if we can help it. So we are eating food out of the garden--cucumbers and tomatoes and kale--and stuff from our freezer and overflowing pantries, and it all feels fun rather than like a hardship. I mean, occasionally I am tired of living like we're still in graduate school at almost 40, but then I think of what values we are keeping intact instead of becoming comfortable financially and that helps it feel more like an adventure. Besides, there are our age-counterparts in Greece and now China in the soup kitchen lines, so I am well aware of the great blessings of a beautiful house in a beautiful part of the world, living without debt, and enjoying many privileges, including being able to feed our family, pay our bills, and sleep well at night. And it is a real gift to be able to spend a couple years at least writing and being available for the children when they leave for school and come home at the end of school.
Speaking of writing, Maple is done and off with an agent earlier this month (two weeks ago, perhaps), but there's no word back yet on that--which is not unusual, actually, so I'm cooling my heels until school starts a week from tomorrow, when I'll go back to a disciplined writing schedule again. I have another book I've been working on, which needs a huge rewrite--
"Summer is the perfect time to catch crickets," Bea just came in, sat on a rattan chair, and announced. Then they told me crickets like meal worms, which move quickly "depending on what mood they're in," Elspeth interjected, and then Eliora came in with a huge bowl brimming with cherry tomatoes. Charley is sitting in the shade, watching everything in a resigned sort of way. He is looking forward to the end of summer, I think, when his schedule will return: ride to school to drop off the kids, walk, sleep, get a pat while I eat lunch, sleep, and pick up the kids. He is a dog of routine. He thrives on predictability.
Merry, who is sitting in the kitchen decorating her new binder, is also looking forward to the beginning of school. She is a girl of routine, of challenge and schedules and academia. She relishes the thought of afternoons of soccer and homework and early mornings of band practice and jazz ensemble. She was dizzy with giddiness two days ago when we got out of the car to do our school supply shopping. I thought she was going to levitate with delight, just thinking about those new mechanical pencils, file folders, and college-ruled notepaper.
"If I knew your name and address, I'd bring you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils." Name that movie!
NPR news just took over the swanky jazz I was enjoying so I will bring this post to a close.
The children are all blissfully unaware of stock market corrections. They are outside, thinking of nothing more than cricket capture an cherry tomato harvests. Excellent. It is just as it should be.
Comments
I wish I could send you a hen or two to supplement your garden veggies.
Enjoy the end of summer.