Ever year when school resumes in the fall, I count down the days ‘til summer vacation begins.  I can’t wait to get the kids back in my nest, to allow our days a rhythm without alarm clocks, scheduled activities and homework.  To let their sleepy brains awaken over a plate of syrupy pancakes and watch their creative energies emerge ready to paint, draw, build Lego villages, or simply lie on the grass and look for shapes in the clouds.

When I think back on our summers past, I picture myself as a mother duck, the kids my little ducklings, following wherever I lead, rejoicing at places we arrive, delighting in activities I suggest, cheerfully eating foods I provide, and nesting in for sleep when I say the time is just right.

I assumed this summer would be just like all the others.  Yet as soon as school let out, I quickly learned that 10 and 12 year old ducklings don’t necessarily want to follow Momma Duck’s lead anymore.

In fact, they don’t really like Momma Duck’s food or bedtime or chores or quiet walks in the woods or fairy house building or puzzles or coloring.

What pre-adolescent ducks do like is TV and Wii and hanging out with friends and sleeping late and going to bed late and complaining and loud hip-hop music that ruffles Momma Duck’s feathers and iPods and computers and arguing and pecking at each other to the point where Mama Duck’s feathers just might fall right out.  At the same time, the ducklings still love ice cream cones and big bowls of popcorn and movie night, water balloons, and wiffle ball and swimming, and curling up next to Momma to listen to stories.

So it seems this summer is about Momma Duck learning to let these growing ducklings sometimes take the lead, or at least swim by their sides, all the while, keeping the nest soft and inviting, allowing the ducklings a safe and familiar place in which to return to rest.

My dad’s birthday is on the 4^th of July. For years we woke to the mixture of him blasting John Phillip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever and my mother shouts of “Turn that music down, Jerry.”

We spent all his birthdays at my aunt, uncle and grandparent’s summer cottages in Henderson Harbor, NY.  The only time during the 4^th of July that I didn’t spend in the water or making tents out of towels on the lawn, or running around with lit sparklers was when everyone gathered around Nam and Gramp’s black and white, rabbit-eared TV to watch Wimbledon.

I remember one year, leaning back against Dad’s legs watching Chrissy Evert battle Martina Navratilova.  Chrissy had just hit a beautiful winner down the line.  “Dad,” I said, “I bet she could beat you.” Everyone had laughed. Confused and embarrassed, I pulled my knees into my chest, until Dad patted me on the back as if to say, it’s ok.  Then I knew my silly mistake.  Of course she couldn’t beat my dad.  Nobody could beat my dad.

For years I’d sat on the grass outside the courts, watching him play.  His opponents would always tease, Oh no, he’s brought his good luck charm, and I’d wait for them to finish so I could get on the court with Dad.  Eventually I’d stand on the opposite side of the court, trying to return his serve, trying not mishit the ball as he charged the net, and trying to win that promised hot fudge sundae if I ever beat him.  We’ve been playing for years and I’ve yet to win that sundae.

The summer I turned 16 was the first I spent away from Dad on his birthday.  Instead, I spent the day at The Wimbledon All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

Wimbledon!  I’d traveled to England on a High School summer exchange program and a group of us spent the night sleeping on the payment outside the stadium in hopes of securing tickets.  When the gates opened on the morning of July 4th, we were tenth in line and ended up with front row seats on Center Court.

I tried to mentally record every detail to later share with my dad. The reel still plays in my head of the traditional bowl of strawberries and cream, the delicately manicured pea green grass of the courts, our Chrissy playing just yards away from me, the misbehaving fans screaming from the standing-room-only section, Jimmy Connor’s bow to Princess Diana that made her blush so deeply, and how she was so pretty in a soft, fuchsia dress that several times I ended up watching her instead of the tennis match.

So there I was, across the ocean from both a dad and a country celebrating birthdays.  A 16-year-old girl experiencing her first true taste of independence; all the while wishing her Dad was by her side to share it.

I couldn’t wait for the kids to get out of school for summer. To sleep in late, eat leisurely breakfasts without making lunches at the same time and not have to race to school before the 7:55 bell ran.

After the end-of-year ceremony on Friday morning, we had a picnic back at our house for both Andie and Tucker’s classes. The party was scheduled to go until 1:00 pm, but the last family left just after 4:00 and a couple of kids stayed over for the night.

Saturday brought soccer games and more end-of-year parties, and Sunday brought even more of the same. The kids were tired, yet loved every minute of the constant entertainment.

Then Monday morning arrived with pouring rain, and not an activity in sight. I was thrilled.  I woke early and read in bed, imagining the glorious, unscheduled day that lay ahead.

But by 1:00 in the afternoon, after saying no to TV for the hundredth time, repeatedly congratulating the kids on the luxury of being bored, tolerating their fighting and running out of chores for them to complete, I started to panic.

I wondered if it was too late to get them into summer camps. I wrote out a grid of calendar squares and made lists of all the activities for which I could sign them up. I remembered the fliers I’d seen at the café and the personal ads in the school newsletter. My pencil scratched across the page listing tennis lessons, guitar and drum lessons, math tutoring, pottery and painting lessons, swimming lessons, archery, basketball, soccer and circus camps. These kids wouldn’t be bored by the time I was done with them.

Then a photo on my desk from last summer caught my eye. The kids were tanned, wearing over sized sweatshirts, sitting on beach chairs around a backyard campfire with s’more sticks balanced in their hands. I studied the picture and told myself to hang in there. Give the kids some time to make a shift and remember what it feels like to have unplanned, open-ended time. They will remember, I told myself.  Resist the urge to plan.

So I slid my lists off to the side of my desk and let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

A little while later, the house had grown so quiet that I went in search of the kids. Soft talking and laughter was coming from Tucker’s room. When I peeked around his door, I saw the kids up on his bed with a card game spread out between them.

“Oh, hi Mom,” Tuck said, when he saw me looking in. “Andie’s teaching me to play Zeus on the Loose. You wanna play?”

The rain continued to splatter on the roof, and I felt our summer shift begin.

“There’s nothing I’d rather do,” I said, climbing up on the bed with the kids who would be all mine for the rest of the summer.

We’re always on the look out for fun summer games and activities? Any you’d like to share?

We’re always on the look out for fun summer games and activities? Any you’d like to share?

When Tucker was a little guy, he’d fashion fishing poles out of sticks and string and hang his “rods” over the back of the kitchen sofa. A bite from a big one, would require great effort and lots of groaning until he successfully reeled in his imaginary catch.

His first “real” rod was red and all of three feet long, with Mickey Mouse on the reel and a little, yellow rubber fish attached to the line.

It wasn’t long until the reel without a hook was no longer satisfactory, and Tuck graduated to a new real rod, hook and all. He learned how to put on worms and release the fish he’d caught. Every vacation, he made sure his fishing pole was the first thing in the car.

But as he grew older, his interest in fishing waned, replaced by more active endeavors like skateboarding, biking and basketball.

Yet just this past Memorial Day, there he was casting a line way out into the water. “I haven’t seen him fish in ages,” I said to my husband who was sitting nearby, changing the lure on his rod.

“Look at the picture on the camera and you’ll know why,” he said.
I turned on the camera and saw the picture they’d taken just before releasing the large-mouth bass Lee had caught.

“No wonder he’s inspired,” I said.

By late afternoon, Tucker had caught five small perch.

“He won’t let these fish go,” Andie complained, staring into the bucket where the six-inch fish were swimming around.

“I want to cook them for dinner,” Tuck said, flipping his hair out of his eyes, which were big with excitement. I noticed the sun had lured a few new freckles out on his nose.

“Dinner?” I asked, thinking of the nearly packed car and the early bedtime I’d wanted for the kids.

“Yeah.  I’ve made dinner before, but that was food from the grocery store. This is dinner I caught for my family.”

Looking into the wide eyes of my soon to be thirteen year old son, I knew this was a significant event.

“OK,” I said. “Go ask Daddy if he knows how to clean a fish.”

Andie was distraught. “You can’t kill those fish,” she cried.  “I won’t eat them.”

“Andie you love fish,” Tucker reminded her.

“Those are fish from the store,” she said, prompting a discussion on food sources. Later she “accidently” let one go, but Lee helped her catch a replacement, which she reluctantly put in the bucket with the others.

As Lee and Tuck covered the picnic table with newspaper and sharp knives, Andie hovered nearby.  She squealed when Tucker cut the heads off the still wriggling fish, but his squared shoulders seemed to be say Look at me providing sustenance for my family.

Five little perch isn’t a lot of sustenance, but with baked beans and left over pasta, it amounted to quite a meal.

We each had a few 1×3 inch fillets that Tuck had dredged in milk and breadcrumbs and fried in butter.  Andie, who wasn’t going to eat her little friends, pleaded with everyone to share a little more off their plate with her.

The fish was truly delicious. But even more delicious was witnessing my boy take a step toward manhood, swelling with pride as he demonstrated his ability to care for those he loves.

 

 

On a recent morning visit with my friend Eleanor, I sat on the loveseat in front of her warm woodstove and picked up a book from the coffee table. The cover was a photo of a woman in jeans and clogs leaning against hay bales in the loft of a big red barn.  The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food and Love by Kristin Kimball, I read. “I’m only half way through, but I think you’ll love that book,” Eleanor said.

She went on to tell me the premise. (Eleanor is from Tennessee, so feel free to hear the words in a delectable southern accent.)  The author was a stylish Manhattan journalist writing an article on the growing local food movement. She ventured to Pennsylvania to interview a hunky farmer running a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and on her first day ended up helping him slaughter a pig in her white designer blouse.  Before you know it, she’d fallen in love with the man and his livelihood, trading in her city life for life on the farm.

Eleanor read me one of her favorite passages about the author’s visit to her parent’s suburban home for Thanksgiving. As Eleanor read (don’t forget the accent) I closed my eyes and pictured the entire scene unfolding in my parent’s very clean, very white kitchen.

“We arrived loaded with food. I was full of the zeal of the newly converted, eager to show off the  gorgeous vegetables my boyfriend had grown… Mark had helped his Amish friend slaughter turkeys that  week, and he’d brought us one… I’d forgotten how very clean my mother’s world is until we walked in  with those boxes, which were smudged with field dirt, a few limp leaves clinging to their bottoms. It appeared we would contaminate any surface we put them on, so Dad directed Mark to the garage, and  my mother asked me quietly if I was sure it was safe to eat the turkey, which was wrapped in a drippy  white shopping bag, its headless neck sticking out obscenely.”

I couldn’t wait to read it, but Eleanor needed a couple of days to finish. So I went out that afternoon and bought a copy of my own.

I could fill the page with my favorite passages, but I won’t. I will say though, when I finished that book (after two days in which I occasionally forced myself to set it down), I was looking at the world through new eyes.  Kristin Kimball’s love for Mark, farming and food were contagious. For the first time in my life, I thought about the rich soil hidden beneath our grass covered lawn and fantasized about a vegetable garden. Her descriptions of the beautifully nourishing meals they created were palpable on my own tongue, and renewed my love and appreciation for the foods we are so blessed to eat. I joined our local CSA and ordered ¼ of a locally raised pig (which was the best bacon we’ve ever had). We trimmed our apple trees in hopes of pressing cider this fall, we’re planting raspberry and blueberry bushes this summer and plan to tap our Maple trees for syrup next spring. We’ve even talked a bit about raising bees and chickens (separately, of course).

While most of my changes are newly instituted or future possibilities, Eleanor and her family have been walking that walk for some time now. They drink milk from their cow, Clover, eat eggs from their chickens (or the ladiesas Eleanor calls them) and harvest veggies and fruits from their extensive gardens.  In fact, I just got off the phone with Eleanor who reported that their evening meal consisted of their first asparagus of spring and a frittata that was bright yellow because the chickens are free ranging on the dandelions in their pasture. After hanging up, my mouth was watering, and I made a little wish that maybe someday, if I’m lucky, my life can be just as dirty as hers.