Gimmer is out! Two weeks is about how long it took to reorient from highly structured, organized input that school days provide, to a more relaxed environment with plenty of unstructured time for play. There is no more frantic searching for FUN, bickering, picking up and leaving games or calling mom to mediate. We’re at occasional squabbles now. The Gimmer (a huge box that can be repurposed into a car, coffee shop, spaceship or anything the kids’ hearts desire and imagination allows) is currently a jail for for the (wrongly) accused stuffy.
After those two weeks, we had been able to properly surrender to July.
There has been smoke in the air from the forest fires, and we’ve unexpectedly been spending a lot of time indoors. During this time, my son got into playing chess, and so a few days were very intensely all about that. I’ve quite enjoyed brushing up on my (very basic) skills and losing to my husband’s obviously superior tactic. I find this light, competitive banter between spouses a great joy and a spark to drive me to better this particular skill. Most adult relationships accumulate a division of competencies where you're good at this, I handle that, and we each stay in our lanes. It's efficient and it works. But the danger here is that we sort of calcify and stop discovering new things about each other because we already know who knows what.
In chess, I get to be a beginner in front of someone who knows me as a capable adult. It’s vulnerable and intimate in a playful way. I can be bad at something in front of my spouse, and it’s rather funny. It’s a beautiful motivator, that my admiration creates aspiration, and that he selflessly shares his knowledge with me.
We recently watched the movie Sheep Detectives and found it entertaining. It was more enjoyable for the kids since they can easily get past the Hollywood plot machinery. They haven’t yet watched enough films to recognize the usual gimmicks of twist villain, the detective genre conventions, the resolution, which is what the book that the movie was based on parodies. Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann is a gem. The writer created a sustained thought experiment about what the world looks like before we learn to put everything into categories. Sheep have no labels for most of what they observe, they misunderstand the strange things humans say and do, their comments and reasonings are often hilarious, but they also stumble into surprising insights.. And from that position they solve a murder that the humans, with all their knowledge and category systems and social assumptions, completely miss. I hadn’t finished listening to the book yet, but Josephine Bailey’s whimsical narration makes it an experience worth repeating.
The campsite we’ve been visiting has daily programs for children. It’s engaging and informative, and they’ve been catching and identifying spiders, birds, touching snakes and frogs, getting familiar with famous pirates and navigating maps.
What’s been most enjoyable about this is that I can now just send the kids to the camp amphitheater when they want to attend a program. I do not have to schlepp them to and from, because I can trust my son to know the way, to take care of his sister and bring her back to me if necessary. He got a taste for freedom of movement that is nearly impossible to replicate where we live. This has been a huge benefit of camping that has nothing to do with nature itself. It’s helping him build competence through learning to orient himself, solve small problems, and practice with some real-time responsibility. We’re facing one of the great paradoxes of modern parenting where we worry so much about children's safety that we deprive them of the very experiences that teach them how to become capable and confident. The contained risks and walkable spaces of a campground had therefore been a real gift.
We are able to push bedtime a little farther without meltdowns the next day (the perk of kids getting bigger) and had been able to spot some fireflies. My little one was scared! The buzz (one was stuck in grass and couldn’t brake free) and the light terrified her, but the older one was delighted. Tried to catch them, couldn’t.
I’ve done most of the stargazing by myself, all alone on the lake shore, and I’ve realized that: 1) It’s incredibly beautiful. The lake, the trees, the darkness, the endless stretch of stars above me all create this strange feeling of vastness that makes me feel like I am in this particular place with a reason I might never comprehend. It made me wonder about all the unlikely events and all the decision I had made that brought me to this exact place and moment. I felt so deeply connected to the people in my life, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else or anyone else; 2) That, maybe, I need glasses. Or, perhaps, the mysteries of cosmos were meant to stay slightly out of focus.
Summer weather has been intense, with lots of heatwaves, storms and squalls, that made for some freaky-deaky zucchinis in our little garden patch.
It is perfect so far for practicing the outdoor equipment setup. We have to get the big heavy tarp up or else we get drenched. I cannot tell you how much fun a kid can have with tossing a bottle tied to the rope, trying to loop the rope around a branch. He’s mastered the bowline knot and uses it extensively. Unfortunately, he also runs around all the time, and he finally managed to run into a rope that was holding the hammock and scrape his neck really badly. Now he looks like he narrowly survived a medieval execution, and I’m scared he's going to inspire a call to Child Protective Services the next time we stop for groceries.
I’ve hadn’t anticipated that this summer will be a difficult season for writing. Everything is bright, alive, we are full of movement. The days are long, the world is outside waiting for us, and I can’t seem to be able to sit still long enough to wrestle with thoughts. There are just too many children asking me to come look at something amazing they found. There is no room for existential reflection when dog is trying to eat a frog, the leg sticking out of his mouth, and the noises he’s making are having us scream with laughter. Also, I don’t think the summer wants to be written about while it’s still happening.
With love,
Aleksandra
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