I took my boat out of the Connecticut River a week ago today. That’s usually what triggers the end of summer for me, but since it’s 88 and humid as I write this, summer still feels like “game on.” I’ll take advantage of the heat as long as it’s given to me, but I’ll have to find some other way to access water! My kayak, perhaps.
It was a wonderful, crazy, busy, hectic summer full of go-go-go, and then go some more. Only in the last few weeks have I really had the time to sit still and enjoy the feel of the sun on my skin. And let’s just say, it was the kind of summer that required me to use my debit card so often I could feel the heat coming from it. I’ve been a moving, spending target since May. That is not a complaint. It was an amazing season full of all kinds of personal growth.
My business is flourishing, with some new clients and a deeper level of engagement with others. I had deadlines overlapping on one another, and I called on my former journalist self to manage them all. I also put out a new website for Beetle Press, which I told you about in my last blog. If you haven’t been able to check out the site, please do.
My personal life also kept me plenty busy this summer. My daughter Sally got married to her longtime finance, my grandson’s father, Tommy, at my house. I served as Chief Wedding Planner. And my younger daughter Molly moved home from the South Pacific and found a job, an apartment and a car and a whole new life, and I helped her as a sounding board each step of the way. Between the two girls, there were some pretty heady summer tasks. (And, of course, that debit card, in flames.)
Sally’s wedding was on Aug. 26. The day was 75-ish and sunny, with wispy clouds. The garden was in full bloom, and not one thing was wrong or out of place. Sally was a beautiful, radiant bride, and she and Tommy were overflowing with gratitude. We were surrounded by family and friends as they said their I-dos, and then we ate and drank and danced, and then sat around a fire pit in the wee hours. I was proud of Sally and proud of myself. The day could not have been more picture perfect. Even my mother says so!
The day after the wedding, Molly loaded her brand new 2014 Subaru Impreza with belongings and headed off to Burlington, Vermont, where she’d landed a job working for a Head Start and had found an apartment through a friend she met through high school friends already living there. Earlier in the summer, Molly and I took a road trip to Burlington, for her interview for the job, and it seemed so clearly to me to be a place where she belonged! There are young people everywhere, great restaurants, lots of hustle and bustle.
I went to Burlington again about 10 days ago to see Molly’s apartment; she and two roommates have a whole house, which is newly renovated inside and has a spacious backyard chock full of sunflowers. We had a drink the first night at a restaurant on Lake Champlain. On Sunday, we sat by the Winooski River and fell asleep, and on my last night there, we watched the sun set while sitting on her roof, playing cards.
Yes, summer was good to my family, but I’m not sure it’s really over. The boat tells me it is, and I feel her sadness. She doesn’t like spending the winter in the cold, barren barn.
Congratulations!