This is the summer I gave up on my hair.
July 18, 2023
This summer, I am done with work every at 4 pm every day for the summer, (thank you, Quincy College). It’s been hot as hell lately, most days, so most days, I am climbing down the steps into the pool by 4:45 and slipping under the rope and inside the lap lane by 4:47.
My backstroke meanders. My freestyle is fast, especially when I remember to kick my legs. I don’t practice breaststroke anymore; it feels too much like the the stroke of someone who doesn’t want to get her face wet. Last year, I practiced butterfly. Well done, it is glorious to watch, and if continued for any period of time, it left me breathless.
This year, I keep it simple. I crawl. I float. I backstroke. I dive.
When I get tired, I pull myself out and slather deep conditioner onto my hair. Then I rinse off in the outdoor shower. Sometimes, there is a tiny group of six year old girls watching me shower because a lifeguard asked them to give me a turn. The shower is very popular with first grade girls.
I have a pair of goggles that keeps all the water out, and I cherish them as much as my fancy headphones.
I only have one swimsuit; it is two pieces that do not match. But the top piece is blue, and bottoms are black, and I don’t think anyone has noticed. I do spend most of my time underwater.
There have been quite a few changes in my life these past years; I am now recognizing this trend will continue, even speed up, in the near and distant future.
I find comfort knowing this is not particular to me; it seems everyone I know is experiencing roughly the same thing, just different circumstances-different levels and combinations of grief, joy, and willingness to adapt to, for lack of a better term, the increasing speed of life
I’m not sure I could adapt to life without swimming in Cunningham Pool, most days at 445.
But, I do.
Every year, it closes mid August so the lifeguards can go back to college.
I sign up for boot-camps and glory in the fall colors while walking Bernadette and Chanel, in the woods just behind an empty Cunningham Pool.
This was the first summer, I didn’t bother to blow dry my hair after dinner, even on weeknights.
I decided summer evenings could be better spent walking the dogs after sunset, going out for ice cream with Katy, heading to bed early, with a book, or to the sofa, to watch Ted Lasso, for the second time, with my husband, (it’s his first, and I think I’m hoping some of Ted’s optimism will rub off).
It’s hasn’t, yet anyway. But it’s only July 17th, and there’s time for us all.
Next time we’re in the same room, I should ask.
October 6, 2019
My daughter’s sixteenth birthday is coming up in a week. She made a slideshow that included pictures from when she was still a toddler, all the way up til last week.
When I watched the video, the video, I found myself mourning for her days in pre-school. She’d greet me by hurling her tiny body into mine, throwing her arms around my waist.
I’ve been missing her older brother, who recently moved out, to a town twenty minutes away. I’ve been remembering family dinners, trips to the park, games of tag your it, and Sam the Turtle.
Time passes. It is so easy for me to linger on what was, who we were, and wonder where the hell it all went.
Katy doesn’t give away hugs as easily. Colin the young man is not Colin the boy. Sam the Turtle disappeared in our yard. We won’t be wandering thru the streets of Provincetown on summer vacation next August, arguing over where to go to dinner, and when to visit the candy store.
My daughter is a graceful, intelligent, funny, stubborn, unforgiving, kind, young, woman.
Colin is a nineteen year old young man. He is not an athlete or a scholar. He is struggling, he is funny, he is fiercely independent. He texts me back. He goes to class most of the time. He wears the world on his shoulders, and he won’t lean on me, ever.
They are here. They are in my lives. They are different than before. I don’t know if I’m different. I don’t know if they feel like I’m different.
I don’t know if in their own minds, they’re still the same, just slightly larger, with different voices, different bodies, different phones, and different bedroom. I don’t know what they think about all of this, because I haven’t asked.
I can get to know them now, when they let me in. When they don’t, I can walk my dog. Look at photographs. Love my work, laugh with my friends, look at the moon. Text their phones.
It is hard, the passing of time. I miss the long ago, the homework, the driving, the laundry, the squabbling over every. little. thing.
In Katy’s slideshow, there were so many photos of her and her brother. I didn’t even know she liked him that much. I think she misses that boy as much as I do.
But he’s down the road, figuring it out, in his own time. And she’s still here, a sophomore in high school.
For now, I’m letting go of the times of two at home. Of negotiations. Of basketball in the driveway. Of babysitters. Of being the keeper of band aids, nail clippers, and the maker of lunches.
Now is as perfect, and amazing, and fragile, as it’s always been. We’re in each other’s lives, changed, needy, lost, and loving.
I wonder if she’ll want an ice-cream cake, and if he’ll come to dinner. I’ll make sure she invites him, and reminds him the day before.
julierichmond 