Summer Social

 

Have you been socializing more this summer than you have for a while? Seeing friends and family used to be the easiest thing in the world for me before the pandemic. I met friends for lunch, dinner, coffee; I went to the theater or a movie with friends or family; and got to parties, now and again, when I was invited.

Then came SARS COVID 2 and all that changed. Winter became a time that I was worried about surges--and I've stayed worried because of an autoimmune disease and immuno-suppressant medicine. But summer is my friend.

Summer, spring and fall offer air to at least make it harder to catch something. So much of the time, I think about how lucky I am to have a decent sized yard and think about how to use it for guests--friends, coworkers, neighbors, you name it.

This summer my husband and I have been seeing friends at our house or visitng other homes nearly every weekend since July began. I would have started sooner but had an uninvited guest that required abdonimal surgery.

We've been to a 90th birthday party (pictured here); a family gathering up north (twice); invited friends for dinner and lunch; and I'm planning to invite another friend over because I've never met her in person and yet have gotten so close just talking on the phone during this pandemic.

Am I a little tired from trying to cram in a year's worth of visits into a few short months? Yes. Would I do anything differently? No. Why? The studies are right when they say that the lack of social time has a worse effect on us than smoking.

And like Game of Thrones always warned us, winter is coming. And the coronavirus will once again rear its ugly head.

So I plan to spend a lot of winter writing, if all goes well. Still writing now, but seeing people I haven't seen in years and it's really lifting my spirts. Making me feel so much more like I want to feel, and not, you know. 

Depressed. Alone. Anxious.

Last summer, a friend I was visiting and hadn't seen for years hugged me. I felt nervous at first, then grateful--and then wondered how I'd gone so long without a hug from a close friend.

So if you're eyeing some outdoor furniture or a kayak or fire pit or outdoor gazebo or any number of things that make it more comfortable to be with friends and family outdoors, I say--

Go for it.

Your friends will thank you. You'll thank you. 

Maybe hug somebody, too.

Paddle Day

Late summer, mid-September day in Minnesota -- supposed to be 88 degrees today! I'm supposed to be writing, but all I can think about is WATER. I already walked part-way round the local lake today but I want more.

Finally, 3 p.m. we got out on the water with kayaks we scrimped and saved for last year. It was a lot windier than I expected, but being out on water steering a boat was exactly what I needed today. No one to tell me what to do or how to do it; just me and the water and little waves lapping around me.

And my husband Pete, a few feet away, in his boat. The water was cold, which was perfect for a hot day. It said yes the world can be crazy, but you don't have to think about that right now. All you have to do is think about whether to get from here to there, and where you want to go and how fast you want to get there.

The water says, we're here, we're in the sun, and beauty is all around us.

I don't have a lot more to say right now because I paddled a lot and I'm tired. So, a little photo essay - and I'll see you next week with more news. 

Last Gasp August

Last day of August. Makes me feel like I missed out on all the summer I still want. 

Last day of August always reminds me I need to live more and worry less. 

Time is horrifically short when summer is upon us 

—and yet and yet. 

I don’t remember, I mess up and do whatever I think I’m supposed to instead of what I want. 

The pandemic isn’t helping, of course. It’s complicating every decision I make and making me double back on it. 

*scream*

Still, it’s still

The last day of August and it won’t pretend to be anything else. Offering me oceans of time slipping through my fingers. 

And a call to jump into that pool of time with a sign around my neck that says family can’t wait. Writing can’t wait. 

Last day of August says listen. 

Listen. 

Try.

Local Mysteries

Mysteries are all around, you know? If you have time to look for them. I've started writing down some of the local mysteries in my neighborhood:

1. Someone a few blocks west of us is shooting off fireworks weeks after July 4, every night around 10. No idea who or why they are doing it.

2. A woman driving a silver pick up truck stops on the side of the road while I'm walking by the lake to ask if it's very hot. Her window is open. Can't she tell if it's hot?

3. Why is the neighbor on the corner trying to sell his lawn? Why does he think anyone will buy it?

4. Why doesn't anyone seem to have heard about the lake in this neighborhood when there are so many people at the beach in summer?

5. Why is the speed limit on my street 40 mph while it's 30 mph three blocks away and why is the county in charge of that?

6. Thunder and lightning crackle outside our home for two hours last night but we don't get a single drop of rain.

7. Mallards nested in our yard for months and now there isn't a single one. Where did they go? The lake?

8. Speaking of holing up in the yard, whatever happened to the guy who broke into our garage? We haven't heard a word from anyone about where he is or what is happening.

9. Where are the deer that used to roam all over the back yard? And what happened to the foxes?

10. How does my cat snore so loudly out of the tiniest nostrils imaginable? (Babies seem to know how to do that too).

More to come, but these are the mysteries occupying me at the moment. If you find out the answers, let me know?

Pool Cravy

No other way to say this. My pool cravings are driving me cravy.

It's ninety-plus degrees out there and I meant to get out for a walk by 9 a.m. Instead, it was nearly 10 by the time I walked out the door and after two miles, I felt completely deflated. 

Hot, hot, hot out there and all I can think of is Swimply.

I read about it this week and it turns out people are renting out their private pools to people like me for a swim day. My husband asks if it's safe, and though we are vaccinated, I understand why.

I looked up swimming recommendations on the CDC website and they say chlorine kills the COVID virus (yay)! They say you may want to wear a cloth mask in the pool (or maybe two masks??) -- but that mostly, the virus is spread by close contact and there wouldn't be anyone there besides my husband and me.

Should we do it? Right now, it's all I can think about. The alternative is one of those inflatable pools we get and put up in the backyard; we'd have to assemble it and then dump out the water later, or put a cover on it, etc., etc.

With Swimply, you walk into a beautiful in-ground swimming pool area that likely has kitchen or dressing room priveleges.

I realize this may be a pandemically-inspired craving, but that doesn't make it less real. Of course, the way to stay perfectly safe is to do nothing, sit inside your house and not go to anyone else's. But where's the fun (life) in that?

Some years ago I spent two weeks at a writer's colony in Northern Minnesota and at the end of every day, went swimming in a pool at a local resort. Writing all day and then taking a two-hour swim was my idea of paradise.

It always was. It still is.

My son, who is living in New York, tells me he goes swimming at his local gym these days almost daily. So wouldn't a swim in someone's private pool be safer than that?

I could go to the lake around here too, but there's algae hugging the shoreline, and that's just a whole lot less tempting to me right now. Plus, the whole chlorine things makes pools more attractive too.

I am likely going to spend the rest of the day pondering this. You are welcome to weigh in, of course. I can't believe I'm even hesitating, pandemic or no.

Humans are meant to swim, aren't they? How can we not?

Pool picture: Coppell Pools

Father's Day and Summer: Two Favorite Reasons to Celebrate

I'll start with Happy Father's Day! Happy First Day of Summer! Not in that order, obviously, but two of my very favorite days.

My favorite-father memories involve our walks and talks around the neighborhood where we lived in New Jersey, dancing on his shoes nightly when I was small and the stories he'd make up at bedtime. They weren't the greatest stories, but he told them well and I always wanted more of them, so he must have been doing something right.

He told me stories of his childhood, the close relationship he had with his twin brother and his older brother Sam. Stories of how he learned to fight anti-Semitic kids in his neighborhood and how Sam would fight for my dad and his twin. 

He taught me life was kind of like a twin too, with some parts hard and scary and others soft and easy. He wanted to be sure I was able to deal with both.

When my mother was angry at me, he argued on my behalf like a lawyer. (It was always against Judge and Jury, so very hard to win against her; but I truly adored him for trying).

My dad's chest had been badly burned as a while when he pulled at a pot of boiling water on the stove. You could see this when he got out of the shower or when we went swimming. I was very used to it so never thought about it until a friend made a comment. It made me realize there were many things I didn't know about my father's life growing up.

As he and I grew older, I heard more stories, including ones about my father's childhood and Army days. My favorite was about his first night in the Army. He was drinking a mug of coffee and noticed a cockroach at the bottom. He picked up the cockroach, threw it out and resumed drinking the coffee. This story was always told by my father while he was laughing; and always made me laugh, too.

My dad also had a tendency to rhapsodize about nature. He took us to the Pine Barrens in New Jersey at times and just the way he said the words "Pine Barrens" and "beautiful" taught me all I needed to know about the power of the outdoors.

As a nineteen-year-old he went out to Idaho to work in the national park system, and always talked about how much it moved him to sleep under the stars every night. When I think of my father at this point, I think of summer itself; the two are endlessly conflated because the season's gentleness and warmth reflect the same qualities my father had all through his life.

I know you can hear how I miss him in my writing, and I know you can tell how much my character (Ruby) loves her dad in the Beat Street Series if you read it. Today I want to honor the bond between all kids and fathers and to thank mine for showing me how fatherhood (and life) are done; or should be done.

I love you, Dad. Thank you.

Summer at the Lake: a Labor Day Lament

Labor Day weekend always feels a little sad to me, because it either means back to school or the end of summer (or at least close). Because we now live near a public beach and lake, I get to be closer to the water than I ever have been and try to walk by it every day.

Walking by the water makes me think of a non-existent summer by the lake that I always wanted, growing up. We were in a suburb of Manhattan and my mom would drive us to Welch Lake every summer.

At the lake, I swam all day, my sister flirted with beach boys and my mother sat in a chair under an umbrella and watched the water. She was completely unathletic and it's only now I realize how boring it must have been for her. But she wanted us to swim and have fun, so brought us faithfully through the years.

Now I see children visiting grandparents, bare feet curling in sand. Boats tied up while the kids stand on paddle boards, balancing themselves expertly in ways I never learned to do. I think of my New York city characters and wonder what they would think of these lazy lake days. They'd wish they had them, like I do.

Summers on the lake would have the smell of those lakes; not salty fresh like the ocean, but a darker, more brackish smell that's not unpleasant. My husband's family cabin is up by Lake Superior, and it's always been too frigid for me, but we've gone swimming in rivers nearby, and that's been fun.

Lake summers need grilled meals and s'mores and live music, which my husband's family always has; we are often there over July 4 and sometimes Memorial Day, and once we went on Labor Day. The lake is beautiful in fall too, but when I'm around it, I always want it to be summer.

There is just something about summer air and water together that makes you feel so alive, and so calm at the same time. It whispers of shared secrets and secret loves, and a way out of the daily grind that promises so much more than it could ever deliver.

Labor Day means summer at the lake is going to come to an end soon. In the Upper Midwest it means cold and snow will come and stay far too long. So every day before then is a gift that needs to last as long as possible. And we have to dive in, I think, not stay on the shoreline.

We just have to dive in.

Long Game Summer

I was born in August, two days more than halfway through the month on the 17th. If I was in charge, I'd have picked June, but it doesn't matter. I will always be summer's child.

People who know me laugh sometimes that I choose to live in the Upper Midwest, where summers are short and quickly over. They don't know how I start counting summer in mid May and go straight through the start of October, no matter what the weather may be doing.  But they are right about summers being short.

Still, Midwestern summers are truly glorious because the rain makes the ground bloom with every sort of northern flower and the greens are as lush as anything Hawaii can offer. Houses too, look better in the dusk and porch light in June, when the lengthening day is almost over--but not quite.

Summer is a writer's season, because it knows the long game. Summer will wait as patiently as a cat for its shining moment and then shine as if it's going to forever.  It sings of lakes and swims and overpowering heat that promises to sweep you off your feet into a hammock.

Summer also brings pool parties and sandals, long grass, running rivers, secret talks and rekindled friendships you might think were gone but are not. It brings you time to walk at night and think of what you want to say, twice, again, a dozen times. It lets you play, and writers need to play more than anything.

The long game extends to baseball and golf, barbecues and sleeveless dresses. Cupcakes at birthday parties and ice cream cones after long, meandering walks.

Summer in the city. Summer in the country. I'll take it anywhere, and I will always remember it. As the longest day of the year approaches, I hold out my arms to catch it, smell and taste it, drink it in. Summer will never disappoint, no matter how long you have to wait for it.

Summer knows it's coming. And it knows, somehow, I'm here. When it does come, it will have my childhood memories wrapped inside it, unraveling them around  my shoulders and ears. Nights when I didn't want to go to bed and told myself stories. Mornings when the sun seemed like a new friend and brought me outside to dance.

Summer knows I'm waiting for it. Freckles, lawn mowers, iced coffee and waterfalls. It knows how the first summer of my engagement, neighbors complained that my fiance and I were kissing on the beach. It knows we still go out there periodically to kiss, neighbors or no.

The longest game will never stop playing. All we have to do is say yes to it, like Molly Bloom.

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Time and the Fair

I honored the last day of August this week by going for a walk on what was probably the most perfect day on the planet—at least in my neck of the woods. Today I’m plotting a Labor Day weekend getaway with my husband that will involve water, sky, and not too many crowds.

But last weekend, as we always do this time of year, we were at the State Fair, which I never expected to attend for so many years. When I first moved to Minnesota, some new friends called and offered to take me and I was charmed by the whole idea.

I’d only been to one county fair before that in Orange County, New York. That had seemed like a foreign country to a city kid, but it was still much more citified than what I see out here.

The State Fair out here is a huge deal, and of course there are rides and crowds and crafts and clothes and food all vying for your attention. Every kind of food imaginable is on a stick so you can walk, and there is never a place where you can hear silence.

But now and again you see the country poking through in front of you, and that’s what I like best. It’s in the tired faces of 4H kids who are resting at the end of the day near their prize (or hopefully prizewinning) sheep, chickens, pigs or cows. It’s in the signs next to the horses, telling you their names and the places where they grew up or were born.

You can also visit the Miracle of Birth Center (which we do every year) to see groups of suckling pigs swarming their exhausted mothers or brand new foals or calves or lambs. If you want a milkshake that’s fresh, you can go to the Dairy Barn and get one that may come from a cow milked very recently.

If you want, you can talk to some of the farmers who tend these animals and find out some interesting facts, like how pigs will eat absolutely anything (including each other) and how many stomachs cows have. You can also find out what it would cost you to raise animals on your own.

The flat art building (and it’s neighbor, crafts) are favorites for my husband, who piqued my interest through a game that's now become our tradition. We each walk through the building and choose our favorite piece of art; and then share it with each other to see if we picked the same one. Some years we have, some we haven’t; but I’m gratified to say we usually like and understand each other’s choices.

My husband nearly always has a corn dog (on a stick of course) and we both always have an ear of corn. (Why do they call it an ear? My next question for next year’s State Fair.) Milkshakes always give us stomach aches (we are a Zantac couple) but we have to have them anyway.

Some days I wonder what my New York buddies would say about this tradition, but I mostly think they would like it. Not because of the crowds (even thicker than on New York's streets, which takes some doing); not because you can get anywhere quickly or because almost anything you eat is going to pack on the pounds; but because even in the midst of craziness at the fair, you know life is slower and wider than it would ever be in real life.

That doesn’t mean I don’t get bored or want something new or that I’ve fallen head over heels in love with the State Fair. I like it, where my husband would say he loves it and wants to go back. But having it bookmark the end of summer kind of helps you turn a corner toward the changing seasons, and makes August sweeter because you can spend a day there.

I guess it’s all about time, right? Prolonging the moment before September descends and you truly have to say goodbye to summer. And then you sigh and say, “Already?” And have no choice but to get on with your day.