The long, liquid light of the June solstice illuminates the
bittersweet season of the closing days of mothering two daughters, in an intact
home, where I tuck them in each night, and coax them into the day each darkened
morning.
Bitter, and sweet. This week, I noticed a title on the
bookmobile shelf—Parenting Your Emerging
Adult—and plucked it down, adding it to my stack of entertaining and
enlightening loan materials. It is dense, and daunting, and clearly can’t begin
to address the welter of feelings and challenges that fill my heart.
The day before, I had stated my two intentions for this
last, languid summer to my emerging adult child: I want to get you ready in
every way we can for the adventure ahead, half a continent away. And, I want us
both to conduct ourselves in such a way that when the summer is over, we aren’t
both filled with relief at parting, and with regret for the summer we didn’t
have.
All along, I have tried hard, almost every day, to parent
with intention, to make meaning in the spaces between the unending chores of
parenting, homekeeping, partnering my spouse. I’ve tried to have conversations
with my girls that held real content, communicated deep values and ideas, and
in recent years, that communicate more of my real, non-mother individual self,
as best as I can recall her, to my children than I feel I gleaned from my own
mother.
It has been exhausting and exhilarating work. I hear many
parents looking forward to the lightening of the load, the easing of the endless
round of family-tending, but the long light of this June makes me yearn to
travel back to a solstice 19 years ago, a long evening spent poolside in the
tropical heat of St. Maarten, where we waited for it all to begin.
I will never taste cantaloupe without tasting the summers you peeled for me and placed face-up on my china breakfast plate.
Voices - Naomi Shihab Nye
Sun-soaked cantaloupes smell of summer, rain, dew and earthy ridges. Melon memories make me smile. They were a staple of our summer fare, along with corn on the cob and fresh sliced tomatoes still warm from the garden. I see my grandma holding the melon in one tiny hand and a scary-sharp knife in the other. She could peel and slice a melon in the time it took my mouth to start watering.
When I was a kid we called them musk melons. We ate them sliced and halved, rarely cubed. Cubing was an unnecessary delay. In my family we salted and peppered our melons, just enough to pull their ripe juiciness to the surface.
Cantaloupes were part of our beach fare. I loved letting the juice of each slice run down my chin and arms; and then, after giving my little brother a threatening look that said stay away from my melon, I would race to the water, rinse off and come back for more.
Sometimes when my dad made my plate, he would lay a slice of melon on its side like a smile with two maraschino cherries for eyes and a miniature marshmallow for a nose.
Cantaloupe was one of the few things connected with my family that has only happy memories. We all loved melon and ate it with joy and gusto. Eating this luscious fruit with my family created alchemical moments where all pettiness and hurt was forgotten. And when we had finished every last bight, we were too full to care about anything except a nap.
From a fast write during a summer writing workshop...
There was a vast woods behind my house and through the woods
ran a long trail which we called the Indian Trail. Whether Indians really used
it or not is unknown to me. I always imagine they did. The woods was a bountiful place for
playing. When you followed that
trail for a quarter of a mile or so it came out in field filled with
blackberries.
In summer when the blackberries were out—early august or so,
it was expected that you grab a bucket, make your way down the trail and pick
as many as you could. Because the
briars were thick and the bugs were everywhere you generally had to put on
shoes (something I rarely did in the summer) and long pants and long sleeved
shirts. I hated that. It was so hot already. But mother insisted that we get as many
blackberries as we could before the birds or the other neighbors did. Come to think of it, no one else was out there except
us.
Those were the day when property was not marked by no
trespassing signs. People could
just go into fields and pick. I
have no idea who owned that land.
It has since been taken over by developers—those berries long gone under
the blade of a backhoe. But there
we went…covered from head to toe, out into the evening hours when the sun was
lower but the bugs were worse. I
can remember wading into brambles over my head, crouching down unable to move
because every movement caught my hands and face and arms, Scratching thin trickles of blood
across my shins and ankles. Bees
buzzing in my ears, dragonflies as they whipped by my head. I hated doing this. Hated the heat and the scratch and the
bugs. Swatting, swiping, sweat
trickling down my cheek. Plunk after
plunk of berries in the can. Fill,
filling, full. Feeling victorious
when I stumble across a pocket of rich ripe black fruit. Trying to get them all without getting
stuck. Reaching the highest ones, some eaten already by bees and birds. Tracking back, down the Indian Trail,
once spilling a whole bucket on the ground and frantically picking up the moist
hot fruit in my hands.
Back home mother would give us big dishes of fruit doused in
sugar, back when sugar was good for you, and we ate them and scraped seeds out
of our teeth; she made ice cream with blackberries and blackberry pies.
I hated the expectation that I would go. Hated the heat
and the work. Hated the bugs and the buzzing, always the buzzing, hated the
thin trickle of sweat and that threatened feeling I had surrounded by brambles,
no way in or out. I loved the
sweet fruit and the way it made my mother remember her childhood. The way that made her happy in a way
other things could not.
But now, like many things from summer, I wish I could go back.
Wish I could turn the earth back over and grow the patch again. Pick some blackberries one more time.
I love the IU Outdoor Pool.Our family moved to Bloomington exactly 7 years ago, and even when we really didn’t know anyone (we had to wait to celebrate an August Birthday until we knew some kindergartners to invite), we could go to the IUOP and hang out and feel part of a community.
I love how anyone can come to the pool. (Our girls have not felt at home when invited to the country club pool, as their mother didn’t before them, and they initially found the Bryan Park Pool daunting, though the allure of the slides is undeniable to them by now.) I love the mix of college students hogging the chaises to display their scantily-clad young flesh for one another with the non-native-speaking families displaying their native swimwear from all over the globe with the packs of native Hoosier boys that the lifeguards are just waiting to blow the whistle on with the constant flow of middle-aged lap swimmers diligently beating back the ravages of time. I love the clean, un-adorn-ed-ness of the deck and the chairs, the minimal snacks, the functional and completely unglamorous women’s locker room (haven’t seen the men’s, but assume it is a similar story). I love the loudspeakers blaring a tantalizing mix of oldies and current pop music, which never fails to take me STRAIGHT back to my adolescence at a public pool in Minnesota, where I logged thousands of early and late miles of training, fantasizing lightning and ejection with every flipturn.I love that they play “Hail to Old IU” at the 6 p.m. closing of the pool for recreational swimming, and I feel nostalgic when I hear it, even though I don’t know it.
As we head into the last stretch of summer, and I mourn (and at a certain level breathe an ambivalent sigh of relief at) the departure of my now-undeniably-adolescents from the essential fabric of my day for their own newly-lengthened public schooldays, I realize that it is at the IUOP where I first sense the chill, the shift in wind and light that signals oncoming seasonal shift—cooler weather, as well as the infernally premature start of the Indiana school year, and the accelerating independence of my beloved children.
I haven’t actually gotten to the IUOP as often as I had hoped this summer. As I also had not in the last two summers, to the point where this year we contemplated whether to buy a family pass, but decided that it is an investment in something valued and valuable: which would, on any particular day, encourage us to go and be in community, be in the sun and fresh air (where we too often ARE NOT in contemporary life), be present to the glittering refraction of light on water and absent from the tyranny of laptop or textbook, the distractions of facebook or streaming video.
I offer here a tribute to summer, and to the IUOP, composed on an earlier and seemingly-endless afternoon enjoyed by its glinting waters, and recently revised in an excellent 4-week poetry class offered by WWFaC-Bloomington.
The Underwater Tea Party
It cannot last long, And so, requires A perfect balance Of willing attention With joyful abandon.
Savor the flickering glint Of scattered sunlight On brilliant aquamarine. Fill your eager lungs, Plug your nose, And enter the watery salon.
Your tiny hostess Grins, giddy With the delight of this Summertime ceremony. Bubbles, laughter, Stream up from her lips
As she gestures: Flutter your hands to sit, Sip a gulp of the silliness She pours liberally in your general direction (Pinky politely extended), Gobble the invisible cookie Undulating toward you Before air, or time runs out.
Summer Camp at Young Women Writing for (a) Change provides a special opportunity for girls and young teens to enjoy being themselves through many channels of creative exploration. A day at camp is a day in paradise for girls and young teens who love to write. Camp is held in mid-July at the historic Poplar Grove Schoolhouse, a building that served eastern Monroe County as an elementary school in the early 1900s. Poplar Grove now houses offices and writing space for Women Writing for (a) Change, a writing program in Bloomington since 2004, offering youth programming since 2009.
A typical day of camp begins with writers gathering in a circle formed by comfortable pillows and chairs around a center cloth. Facilitators open the day by reading a poem, often followed by an invitation for writers to dive into their first short burst of writing. In these “fast write” exercises, emphasis is placed on writing freely, keeping the pen flowing, and turning off the inner critic who insists on perfect grammar, sentence structure, and spelling. The result is writing that holds depth and insight, with interesting associations that arise from the non-analytical side of the writer’s mind. Participants are given the opportunity to share their writing fresh from the pen, in varying ways. This might include partner sharing, reading out loud in small groups, and large group. Careful attention is given to how writers listen and create safe space for one another, and it is always honorable to pass if a writer chooses not to share at any given time.
One way young writers learn to listen and respond to one another is through the recording of “read back lines” which are resonant words or phrases captured by listeners and read back to the writer at the end of her sharing. Hearing one’s words echoed back is an affirmation to the writer, contributing to an “acoustics of intimacy” that strengthens a writer’s connection to her voice. This support of authentic voice is the underlying mission of Young Women Writing for (a) Change. The added benefits are self- confidence, a sense of belonging, and deep engagement in the creative process.
Camp is led by trained facilitators, and a low teacher-student ratio of 1:5 is maintained. Leaders participate in writing exercises and share their writing alongside students. Hands-on craft activities, music, movement, and visual writing prompts are often incorporated, as well as writing outdoors under the shade tree in the large back yard. At the end of each day, participants reflect on their experience before closing the circle for the day. At the end of the week, camp culminates in a special read-around for parents and friends. One parent reflected, “This was a beautiful experience…these girls are courageous and creative. You do a phenomenal service for them in providing a safe place for them to be brave.”
For more information about Young Women Writing for (a) Change, or to register for camp, please visit www.womenwritingbloomington.com.
In anticipation of a recent trip to Italy, Family and friends loaded me up with books and sight seeing suggestions—most of which I left behind in Indiana in my disorganized rush to take off and travel light. Instead, I carried 30-year-old memories of a journey I’d taken through Italy as a 19 year old student vagabond. Those memories still vividly conjured first real-life viewings of masterworks of art, the shame-by-association with ugly Americans abroad, the cheap wine, the crusty bread and cheese eaten in San Marco Square, and all those pigeons that dawdled at our feet then flew up around us. Back then, it was train stations, hostels, lingering hours on street corners with other students, buskers, backpackers, and bad-asses with big hearts. I was open wide to everything!
This time, I went to celebrate having turned 50. I traveled solo with old friends there to meet me in Florence. I had some money in my pocket, a cool black “euro bag” that defies criminal mischief, newly-purchased, ultra-light wick-away undergarments and summer wear, an English/Italian dictionary, a journal I made by slapping a postcard of a very Italian-looking doorway on to the cover of a Mead composition book, and a sense of pure openness to where each day might take me. Most of that 19 year old me came along for the ride this time. She was happy for access to a few expendable Euros and the promise of more luxurious digs upon arrival. I was happy for her fresh eyes and open heart.
I passed through Indy, Newark, Rome, Florence, and , with my travelling companions, through the Chianti region, Siena, to an Umbrian Country House on the hill near the village of Grutti. There, we sat one night on a tiny patio outside the only cantina in town alongside 40 village men and boys who ate gelato and smoked cigarettes watching Italy play world cup soccer. In the mornings, l marveled at the quality of light that shone on ancient hill-top towns in the distance; that moved with the clouds across the rolling green, wheat, and olive-groved countryside, the enormous rabbits I mistook for small deer leaping in the meadow below the house, and at my own sense of belonging in a place so far from my home.
We spent one memorable day with Monika Iris in an 8 person passenger van, taking us to see her friends all over the Chianti region south of Florence. Eleanore’s 500 year old olive farm and family villa (Mona Lisa was a “neighbor” and guest in this house way back when!), Fernando’s small 5 acre winery in Montefiorelle. 84 year old Lena’s Bar for late afternoon coffee. Throughout the day, Monika wove her philosophy of life through the narrative of our nine hour journey. “We go with the flow here”, she said. “Good can come from the unexpected –or, not everything bad comes to harm. Take your time. Respect food, nourish your body, and support your local butcher, bread maker, your vintner”. To my inquisitive friends and I, who had a hard time resisting the urge to pepper her with personal questions, Monika steered us back to the moment, suggesting without saying it, that we Americans have a curious need for back- story or quick intimacy which is not necessarily the Italian way. Look out the window, for god’s sake. Don’t miss what’s right in front of you! At one point as we were making small talk, she said “Italians don’t ask what they’re not interested in.” Note to self: Bless your guides and consider heeding their guidance.
We did and saw many things at a slower pace over 10 days. We lazed in the intoxicating scent of jasmine, scotch broom, lavender, and rosemary. We felt perfect weather on our skin, managed the markets and shop exchanges with friendliness and humor. We leaned against cool Etruscan walls in the heat of the day, walked cobblestone alleyways worn smooth over thousands of years. Thousands.
We made tiny cups of coffee. We ate gloriously fresh food, drank wine free of sulfites, traversed the awkward territory of language, then fell happily to trying to play that music while our Italian brethren joyfully applauded our halting, gesturing efforts. Goodwill abounded! One Chef in an out- of- the- way Umbrian restaurant kissed my hand at the end of one memorable meal for my efforts to roll with the language. Another time, our waitress abandoned her service of us in frustration when we mis-ordered and mistakenly sent the wrong dish back. Not all bad comes to harm. We learned that next time we’d keep the food to take home. Either way, we paid for the extra meal and apologized to the extra friendly management then tried to let it go.
I return to Indiana on fire to learn Italian. The pure pleasure of hearing it spoken, the serious music of it, won’t leave me. I return restored, wiser and younger at heart, sweetened back to myself and my faith in the goodness of the world. I feel my presence back home potently and with gratitude. I return having learned something by being around people who live the moment, go with the flow and don’t sweat the small stuff. I’m reading MORE about Italy now that I’ve returned than I did in preparation for or during the trip. I find this reading in light of having experienced more meaningful somehow. Thanks to all who shared their resources with me and now don’t mind my holing up with them just a little while longer.
Summer is here. Saturday night, a “Full Strawberry Moon,” according to the Farmer’s Almanac: "This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. In Europe they called it the Rose Moon." Earlier in the week, the Summer Solstice, always a favorite in my household.
The heat and humidity are overpowering. Reluctantly, we retreat into our air-conditioned house, with the thermostat set to a guilty 82 °F. most of the time. We had a cold winter here, for south central Indiana, with six blessed “snow days” extending the school year to a palatable June 1 release. Now, we are having an early, hot summer. The contrasts are stark. (Thoughts of global warming are inescapable, and the BP disaster continues to pump unprecedented quantities of spilled oil into the Gulf of Mexico.)
Every year, I approach summer thinking it will be a blessed contrast to the school year, relaxed, giving rise to a completely different frame of mind for a good 6 weeks. This habitual misapprehension is, in part, a ruse to distract myself from the accrued losses of departing students, friends, and hard-won routine at the end of each academic year. I have always, from a young age, found myself reluctant to move beyond the comfort I have achieved (not always easily), with teachers, classmates, living situations, by the end of the spring semester. Having lived my whole life in academic communities (to my utter surprise), I still have not come to terms with this sense of loss, and the corresponding anxiety that accompanies the peeling off each spring of certain friends and acquaintances into other communities, other destinies, distinctly “other” paths of life.
I remember my childhood summers as endless, in a mostly positive way, allowing for a gradual accretion of sameness and satiation of my own direction of my own activities, preparing me to once again subordinate myself to the tutelage of teachers, music instructors, and peers. I miss this sense of vacillation between structure and non-structure. The divisions seem sadly blurred in modern life.
So far, this summer has brought extreme fragmentation, between the various pursuits of my 10- and 14-year-old daughters, the international travel of my husband to various conferences, visits to our aging parents (from whom we have strayed geographically about as far as possible within the continent), and my attempts to hold a work life together.
As I drove my youngest to yet another violin engagement the other day, she commented on how, with the trees all in full leaf, it is almost impossible to imagine how bare and stark they were not long ago. The contrasts are hard to process, yet one has almost to work to not acknowledge them. Indeed.
In celebration of this celestial, if not always as in-the-flesh-as-one-would-like turning of the seasons, I offer companion poems on Winter and Summer Solstice. To help us appreciate the miraculous contrast.
The Bloomington affiliate of Women Writing for (a) Change is an emerging school which supports the lives of women for whom writing is, or is becoming, an important creative and spiritual practice. The mission of the school has always been to create a healthy, creatively-charged writing community that celebrates the voices of women (and men in select offerings) in search of authenticity, deeper consciousness, healing, personal transformation and re-connection.
For more information about classes, retreats, outreach, and opportunities for young women and girls go to: www.womenwritingbloomington.com
