Go Ask Alice

I can feel it. Like a heartbeat. It’s palpable. Just around the corner. It’s about to beat down the front door, shrieking and screeching…. “SCHOOOOOOOOOL’S …. OUT…. FOR…. SUMMERRRRRR!!!” Go ask Alice. Cooper, that is. He knows what I’m talking about because he’s been singin’ that damn song since time began – or since I was in school which, according to my kids, must have been when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and there were no such things as cell phones. Summer vacation. I miss it. Remember how it felt? Knowing that no one was going to drag you out of bed when it was still dark outside, shovel cereal down your gullet and push you out the door with a tuna sandwich in one hand and a 7,000-pound school bag in the other? For eight to ten glorious weeks of the year, you were going to do what YOU wanted to do, when YOU wanted to do it. You were going to swim, ride your bike, hang out at the park, get ice cream. You were going to shamelessly flirt with boys until you could claim one as a “boyfriend” and regale your friends with tales of your “summer romance.” Of course, the version HIS friends would get about how he “copped a feel behind the shed” would be much less romantic and probably more realistic. But who cared? It was SUMMER. Just that one word makes all right with the world. At least for a little while. These days, I have a different view of summer. I love it as much as I always have. It’s just changed some. Now, it’s my girls that feel the sudden rush … the exhilaration … the freedom from the constraints of every day. I just don’t let them go behind the shed! I have my own “summer joys” as an adult. I no longer have to wake up daughter #1, make her breakfast, make 2 lunches, find last-minute “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU NEEDED THIS LAST NIGHT?!?” school supplies, permission slips or money, find an alternative outfit for Miss Fashion Frenzy in the 23 laundry baskets full of clean clothes I haven’t yet had the time to put away, shove her out the door with a tuna sandwich in one hand and her 7,000-pound school bag in the other, run downstairs to check email, figure out which clients need my attention first then run back upstairs to.… deep breath ….rinse and repeat with daughter #2. Summer means I can get up at a “normal” hour. I can make a pot of coffee and not feel compelled to squeeze my head under the drip just to save a little time. I can glance at the front page of the paper and not feel guilty if something grabs my attention. I can wander outside, coffee CUP in hand, to look at my gardens, do some quick weeding and watering, and appreciate the morning sunshine. I can even get my first load of laundry done and out on the line before anyone else is even out of bed. I know – doesn’t sound much like vacation, does it? But, for me, dropping the stress level of the other 9 or 10 months of the year is a break in itself. I relish the days of doing what I need to do, when I need to do it. That one breathy, heavenly, “does-my-heart-good” word… SUMMER… it’s what I live for the rest of the year. That is, until my one word is trumped by two, inevitable, “nails-down-a-blackboard” words – I’MMMM BORED. Ahhhhh yes, the other damn song that someone, somewhere, has been singing since time began.