“There’s nothing better than having time on your hands and the summer to blow.”
The summer comes and it goes, and sometimes you don’t know what happened to your time of lazy days to do as you wish.
Your children start to say, “I’m bored.”
Or they gaze out the window into the garden blankly, no longer with the looks of enchanted wonder they had at the start of summer when promises and opportunities swelled and the world was theirs for the discovery.
Now they’ve been there and done that and, well, going back to school just doesn’t sound that bad anymore.
My wife and I sigh.
It’s the middle of summer and the end is too close. We fret about returning to the busy days of racing kids to and fro from school to this event and that event and to the doctors and swimming classes, always climbing, improving, becoming and making.
It’s rarely about just being. [continue reading…]
Across the river and into the trees and past the hungry birds, we walked.
We took a walk into the woods with our four-ton dog, and it was cool in the summer afternoon as a southern wind blew off the Atlantic ocean. My two eldest children, 10 and 8 years old, rode their bikes on the sandy lanes behind our house on the coast of Argentina. The five-year-old fluttered around. She found a snail shell and put it in her pocket just in case a hungry bird wanted to eat the juicy innards that were no longer there.
“You never know,” she said.
“Oh,” I said.
My wife and I walked behind and it felt good to relax after the rush of Christmas and New Year’s and after a year of looking after my dying father, with our bodies and minds still reeling and so very exhausted.
So we walked ahead and down the sandy lanes until we found a new playground, and the kids tested out the amusements. [continue reading…]
“I’d let down my hair… if I could.”
I am wise beyond my years as a husband.
How?
Well, I told my three children, “Do you want to know a secret of happiness?”
“What?” they said.
I explained. When your mother goes to get a haircut like this afternoon, you must say you like it the first thing she walks in the door. Make a fuss; dote on her new ‘do. Look pleased and mention that you like it.
I’ve failed enough times in this endeavor to know. My oversight has led to reprimands, sulks and comments about my thoughtlessness, remarks that I only think of myself and never of her. I have learned over the years to remind myself — even pinch myself — throughout the day so that I will remember to say something when I first lay sight on her new hairdo. The best comment is how stunning it makes her look. [continue reading…]
