Summer is quickly slipping away. Last night, I walked to the chicken coop after dark to tuck in my hens and Romeo for the night, and it felt and sounded like fall. I love fall; it's my favorite season. However, I’m not quite ready to let summer slip away. We will spend our weekends at the Shaker Woods Festival in Columbiana, Ohio, in two weeks. In twenty-three days, my favorite human bean will return to school. We will host our fall event on the farm in two months, and the Ligonier Country Market will be over. Sigh.
I’m not ready to give up the freedom summer offers. I love having Jordan home for the summer. I enjoy Raylee and Abby coming to help us out during the week. I enjoy the spontaneity of summer activities. Jenna invited The Bean and me to Buttermilk Falls on Sunday. We got up early, walked to the falls, and had the entire park to ourselves for about an hour. It was lovely. We then went out for breakfast and took a drive. It was a lovely relaxing morning.
When The Bean returns to school and has a regimented schedule, I will have to give up that spontaneity. My bean needs her sleep, and we all suffer if she doesn’t get it. There will be no more early morning runs to the coffee shop with my favorite kid. I will instead have to pack her lunch and wrangle her out the door and to the bus stop on time. We will resume extra-curricular activities in the evenings and weekends. We will have to adhere to scheduled homework time and practice time management skills to get everything done in a day.
There will be no more impromptu campouts; evenings spent leisurely around the campfire staring at the stars through the trees. Instead, we will have to resume a bedtime routine at a reasonable hour and sleep in proper beds like proper people. There will be no more sleeping in until six or six-thirty…sometimes seven. Instead, we will be up at five, hustling to get out the door.
Soon, the evenings will begin to lengthen, and rollerblading on the driveway until nine in the evening will end. Porch sitting until the moon rises high in the sky will end. Instead, we will return to homework time from five to six, dinner at six, cleaning up, and rushing to taekwondo until eight or nine. Then it will be home to shower, pack up for the next day, and be in bed by nine-thirty or ten at the latest. Only to rise and do it all again the next day.
Morning coffee on the porch will be over, no more episodes of Gilmore Girls before we start our day, and no more hanging out leisurely and discussing the plan for the day. Instead, we will have to say goodbye for the day and spend eight hours apart. She will return to the germ-infested cesspool of public school, come home, and bring every germ that ever spawned with her, and we will begin our annual practice of fighting off death and disease. Okay, that’s dramatic, but we will be battling colds, flu, stomach bugs, and all other forms of yuck that make us feel like we are dying.
No, dear reader, I am not ready to say goodbye to summer and our relaxed approach to summer. I find myself wanting to hold on to it tightly and squeeze out every ounce of unscheduled summertime spontaneity. I’m not ready for my favorite girl to attend “high school.” I’m not prepared for homecoming dances, boyfriends, stress, packed lunches, regimented schedules, and hours of homework. I fully intend to enjoy as much unscripted time with my girl as possible. After all, like summer, these moments are fleeting.
On this gorgeous summer day, stay safe, be smart, hang on tightly to the wonders of summer, and of course, wash your hands.
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