Summer Days/Look for America

June 14, 2006 | Category: Family, It's a Trip

Growing up, in sandy New England. School would let out, and my mom would drag out that canvas beach bag - like the ones they sell at Land's End? Over weeks, the layer of sand in the bottom would rise, no matter how much she'd knock it out at the end of the days.

Sweaty plastic bottles of juice. Bags of chips and carrot sticks. Towels that were always a little damp. T-shirts and romance novels and beach toys and plastic sunglasses.

And there were swimming lessons and half-day camps and play dates. And hours upon hours at the pond or the beach. Sunburnt cheeks with smears of zinc, sea glass and "perfect" rocks that we'd beg to take home, and long rides in the car to and fro and the hot vinyl seats and the radio blasting and licking popsicles we got from the ice cream man.

I spent all of my 20's together/apart with my first love. There are so many reasons why love wasn't enough. The most abiding reason was our different dreams. Of my dream, of being that mom. Of that child in the backseat singing along as we played the radio loud. Of a canvas bag full of sand and treasures, swimsuits under our t-shirts, flip-flops slapping as we walked.

You'll remember me when the west wind moves / Among the fields of barley / You can tell the sun in his jealous sky / When we walked in fields of gold

And there have been have been five summers since Bear was born. Five summers that I have tried to be that mother to him while being the professional woman I also was. Five summers of me in slacks, on the other side of a fence and watching. Five summers of my telling him to be quiet as I drove with a teleconference hanging in my ear. Five summers of dropping him off, and picking him up later. Of hearing him and Elia through the window as they splashed through the sprinkler in the backyard, and blocking them out so I could concentrate.

I never made promises lightly / And there have been some that I've broken / But I swear in the days still left / We will walk in fields of gold / We'll walk in fields of gold

While I believe, with all my mind and conviction, that there is no right way to do it - Lord knows that I have never been at peace with the path my mothering was taking. I am just not that good at multi-tasking, that I ever felt like I was doing justice to all my roles.

And more than that, it is never far from my mind that I will get one childhood with this boy. A handful of summer nights standing outside the ice cream place licking the melting chocolate chips from our fists. And then it will be time for him to join his friends, his own children, his destiny.

Five summers gone, already.

This summer comes at the expense of our savings and, maybe, a little bit of our security. I lay awake some nights, listening to the fan twirl, pushing away the feeling of panic. Of what happens in September.

But yesterday, as we drove home from the swimming pool with Bear licking his bomb pop in the backseat, with freckles over the light tan on my arm, with a familiar song on the radio. We were plotting the summer. Our plan to visit all 50 states before he is 10 years old. We're up to 16, and it was serious discussion to figure out where to next. About the Grand Canyon, and hunting dinosaur bones.

... I realized that I finally had my dream.

We pulled into the driveway, in the warm afternoon sun. His lips were bright blue and red, the towels damp over the seats. CD came out and lifted him from the van while I gathered everything up into my big bag.

Inside, the shadows were long and the house was quiet. As his father dressed him in dry clothes and tucked him in for a nap, Bear chattered softly about the ordinary adventures of a mid-June day.

I leaned against the wall with a smile.

They say: be careful what you wish for, you just may get it. Well, after 20 years of deaming, this one has come true.

It is a joy as fleeting as a summer. And worth every moment in gold.

Many years have passed since those summer days / Among the fields of barley/ See the children run as the sun goes down / As you lie in fields of gold

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