Sparkling Summer

Pink Think: "Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time." - John Lubbock


Photo by Joanna306 on Flickr

My husband returns from Alaska tonight. I've been counting...he's been gone for six days. We have the red carpet rolled out for his return.

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Not that we have been moping. For July 4th, my youngest got to ride on a fire truck for winning a poster contest at school. She had been so looking forward to riding her horse in a parade for the first time. Then she decided that the opportunity to ride on a fire truck doesn't come every year. She had a blast. My other two kids rode their horses and I shuttled between them and my youngest and my parents and in-laws who were cheering and collecting candy along the parade route.

We watched fireworks on the third and the fourth, and perhaps that is when I most acutely missed my husband.

He'll be home today!

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I cannot believe that I have deprived my kids of sparklers all these years. This past week, I bought six little packets of sparklers just for fun. My kids had never lit them until July fourth.

Okay, so I have this rather traumatic childhood incident, when, on New Year's Eve in the Philippines, a kid threw his sparkler in the air and it fell in my shirt. I still have a scar the size of a quarter on my chest. So I wasn't exactly wanting to push sparklers onto my kids.

Well, on the fourth, I helped my kids light their sparklers. At first they voiced fear, then wonder, then joy, as they held up these amazing dancing dandelions of light. And I was more than happy to give up my share of the sparklers, just glad to watch them.

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I think this summer has been a revelation for me. I had been pushing myself so much over the school year, and now, my writing has come to a little standstill. A break. And yet, I feel like poetry is humming through my very being. I have just been enjoying

running through sprinklers
sleeping on the trampoline
eating lots of Otter Pops
staying up late
watching movies
walking the dogs
reading lots of books
going to the library
buying cheap things on impulse
going to the arts fair

This has been a wonderful summer and I hope it doesn't end anytime soon.