A friend posted this image on her Facebook page, and my gut reaction was OH HELL YEAH. This was a mojo-less summer. I normally pride myself on being an adventurous mom, with fun things up her sleeve. Not structured arts-and-crafts-project kinds of things, but the kinds of things that just flow more naturally: living and breathing nature and art, summers spent playing in mud or swimming in the river or picking orchard fruits or taking little road trips to interesting local-ish places or getting out the art supplies and just exploring them all over a messy porch. Bringing friends together, living the summer as a big raucous tribe, having spontaneous backyard dinners with each other because hey, we've spent the whole day together and now it's dinnertime and why part ways now and what can we throw together to eat? It's a season of togetherness, of wholesomeness, of living juicy, wild, and free.
This summer never got rolling for me. Maybe it was my kids' ages. Maybe it was the oppressive heat. Maybe it was the summer starting off with my parents ignoring my "please don't contact us in any way" request by prowling around the outside of my house and yelling up at my windows, frightening the neighbors and confusing my kids. Whatever the cause, I was in a do-nothing funk and most of the adventures and friend gatherings never materialized. We spent too much time in PJs (some time is fun, too much is depressive) and watched too many hours of Netflix. Our garden, dilligently planted in the spring, grew weedy and neglected; okra was choked out, herbs wilted, tomatoes fell to the ground. Paints and pens languished on shelves. The kids bickered, I wallowed, the kids whined, I growled and worried about becoming just like my mother.
So thank goodness for September. Thank goodness for the return of our school year routine, which makes it so much easier for me to feel internally organized. Thank goodness for more frequent sightings of friends, making it easier to plan outings or have spontaneous adventures. Thank goodness for cooler weather washing the sluggishness off of my skin. And so long to a miserable, boring, isolated summer.
With that, I am off the computer to tackle the tilting piles of unsorted papers and to plan my autumn projects.
What will fall bring to you?
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