I remember my childhood summers as a happy jumble of hot and cold (blistering asphalt! Ice cubes down my back!) and dry and wet (dusty softball fields! Thunderstorms!). My memories are sense-oriented: the smell of Coppertone and freshly cut grass, the taste of grape Popsicles and chlorinated pool water, the sound of crickets and water sprinklers, the skin sensation of warm darkness and of mosquito bites, each with its own distinct itching note; the thrill of seemingly endless daylight and, when night finally did descend, the sight of lightning bugs.
In my childhood summers, time flowed as slow as honey and I never hurried anywhere. I recall moments of perfect contentment: sitting on a patch of grass or lying on the fattest branch of my favorite climbing tree, doing nothing. A few years ago, these happy memories prompted me to try an “old-fashioned summer” with my daughters, then aged 6, 9 and 11. Long before vacation started, I had made exciting plans for a fun-filled summer: riding camp, tennis lessons, music classes. The girls were not enthusiastic. “I am staying home!” Ella declared and Marlene explained, “Mom, we just want to play all day long.” I talked to them about the thrill of challenges, the excitement of making new friends, the specter of stay-at-home boredom. Deep down, I was worried.
What about self-improvement and continuing education? My daughters’ classmates were signed up for sailing lessons and softball teams. Surely my girls would lose their competitive edge? And what about me? True, I did not have any pressing deadlines and my husband’s income more than covered expenses. But I had no desire to put my writing on hold and give myself over to my daughters’ erratic rhythm. “We won’t bother you at all,” they promised in unison. I didn’t believe that for a second.
Still, the prospect of going with the flow enticed me as much as it scared me. I had been reading about mindfulness and being present in the moment, and this seemed like an opportunity to put these ideas into practice. And then, there were those indelible memories of my own idle childhood summers, swathed in light and warmth and peacefulness. Didn’t my daughters deserve at least one of those?
After the last day of school, free time stretched out ahead of us as endlessly as a highway. Too young to savor the pleasure of sleeping in, my daughters were wide awake before me. The first vacation days were filled with whining and fighting—they felt uncomfortable and lost without the structure of school-day schedules. Since we didn’t have a TV, they could not escape their discontent with the push of a button.
Just when I was ready quit the experiment and make a last-minute summer camp arrangement, they settled into their personal rhythms. I heard them humming as they played board games and dress up or constructed intricate scenarios with dolls and Playmobil. At their own speed, they would go from drawing to teaching the dog a new trick to getting ice cream at the corner store. Rather than obeying clocks or appointment books, we followed our inclinations, often letting the weather prompt us. Let’s go to Strawberry Pool before the fog rolls in! Let’s enjoy the warm evening and watch the sunset at the marina!
This was the summer of simple pleasures: outings and sleepovers and day trips. We knew the lifeguards at Lake Anza by name and explored Tilden Park. Wading in creeks, climbing trees, scaling rocks with their friends—this was the closest my daughters came to my own unencumbered childhood summers, when my sister and I roamed the streets unsupervised, my mother unworried about abductions or other urban dangers. I sometimes felt sorry for my own kids, who did not know the pleasure of aimless rambling in their neighborhood. But as I watched them stake out secret places behind blackberry thickets, I realized that roaming is not just about space, but also about time—and for once, they had plenty of that.
Because they weren’t wedged in between more urgent things, daily rituals took on a new quality. We ate our simple meals at leisure, talking and laughing and squabbling. Walking the dog didn’t feel like a chore because we used it as an opportunity to explore the neighborhood and observe canine behavior. Maxine and I speculated about the secret smells our puppy was following and conjectured about the messages he encoded in his “calling cards.”
Our weekly visit to the farmers’ market was a bit like a country excursion: admiring the ever-changing bounty of summer fruits and vegetables, so beautifully displayed, marveling at the endless variety of tomatoes, tasting berries and peaches while listening to mellow live music.
Ironically, my summer bubble burst in this bucolic setting. As I searched for the perfectly plump melon, another mother from my daughters’ school raved about her daughter’s ballet intensive and her son’s tennis lessons. “They are packing for Cazadera music camp as we speak,” she gushed. I felt guilty. Before she had a chance to ask me anything, I rushed off, feigning urgency.
Back at home, I slumped in a chair while my youngest stacked plums and grapes in pyramids and I wondered if there was a difference between going with the flow and slacking. Our list of summer accomplishments was empty. OK, one daughter had memorized all the states and their capitals, the other had baked several cakes from scratch, the third one had organized face-painting gigs at birthday parties. Together, they had produced a stack of drawings, read a few books, listened to novels on tape. None of this would move my daughters ahead on their school paths. What would they write in their “what I did this summer” essays when they got back to school?
I contemplated this question as I savored a cup of good tea. And I realized that they had plenty to tell, though none of it could effectively be captured in a list of bullet points.
There were outings to the Point Reyes beaches with friends, the glittering Pacific stretching out as far as the eye could see, bold sand sculptures and intricate seaweed designs and bonfires at dusk. How about the weekend in Santa Cruz, when they decorated our motel rooms with Christmas ornaments we bought at a yard sale (because we had enough time to browse!), and inadvertently (I think) poured shampoo into the Jacuzzi after a day at the boardwalk.
Then there was a weeklong stint of house-dog-pool sitting for Auntie Jill. In the buzzing heat of Sonoma, they spent the days floating on air mattresses, diving deep for shiny coins and swinging in the hammock. At mealtimes they took turns selecting a set of salt- and pepper-shakers from Jill’s extensive collection. In town, they met parrot rescuers and their colorful charges at the ice cream parlor and noted the absence of street people.
Our summer had included an opportunity for service. My aunt and my very sick uncle lived with us for a couple of weeks when they visited the Bay Area for medical treatment. Ella and Maxine shared a room so that Sabine and Joseph would have a comfortable space. Ella prepared snacks and drinks for Joseph and sat by his bedside every day. As best as we could, we cheered and pampered Sabine. If we had been immersed in summer programs, we would have experienced this as a major inconvenience. Since we had time, we saw the opportunity: caring for my terminally ill uncle was yet another invitation to engage with life.
Was our idle summer good for the girls? I know that this was the last time that all three of them, left to their own imagining and desires, chose the simple pleasures of childhood rather than the complicated balancing acts of adolescence. Was it good for me? It certainly wasn’t easy. I did not experience the slow pace as relaxation because I was doing the invisible work of holding the space for my daughters. Instead of following my own rhythm and getting deeply involved in my own projects, I was always engaged with them, tracking not only their escapades to make sure they were out of harm’s way, but also their feelings and needs, keeping the bigger picture in mind even as I surrendered to the flow of daily life.
Practicing the art of being present brings up feelings, many of them unpleasant. I like the definition of love as “a way of being present” and for this reason, I remember this as the summer of love. Those weeks were the closest thing I have had to the crystalline memories of my own childhood summers, when everything was all right.
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Christine Schoefer is a freelance writer living in Berkeley. Her work has appeared in Salon, Utne Reader, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times.
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