Saul Good and Co.

Introspect/Retrospect

One morning on the island, the sun was giving off gentle heat, the tide was all the way out so the waves made a dull, soothing roar, and I was doing yoga on the beach with a gaggle of cousins and one aunt. This was something totally special and unique, and totally lovely-- a moment of all moments except for the fact that I was in the midst of the gnarliest tampon blowout I've had since I was a teenager. I cursed my body for messing up something so nearly perfect while offering a silent prayer of thanks to the yoga pants gods that mine weren't white. That's life, though, isn't it? There can never be perfect, one's humanity will go ahead and guarantee that for you. 

A month has already gone by since this happened, and life has been hectic in the best way it can be, hopping from vacation to vacation, with a few days of work catch-up sandwiched between. It got to the point, though, where I craved routine. My bed. Vegetables. Solid, non-vacation normalcy. Being in it, when I was in it, was delightful and I swam a lot with my waterbaby (HR was all in for hitting the waves this year) and drank my weight in delicious beverages and got down with the top-of-the-game campsite cuisine (Mike's recycled french fry homies were unbelievable) and avoided the news as much as possible and listened to the Red Sox be MONSTERS on the radio and read two entire books and slept like a baby every night with the sea/forest air coming through the screens. I was stung by a bee for the first time in my life and both HR and my nephew had nasty mosquito bite aftermaths, but overall the wildlife was chill and almost all of the rain happened when we were off the island helping out while my sister and her family attended an in-law wedding. I didn't get to see my brother and sister-in-law nearly enough, but I did get to be with my nephew, my sweet baboo, every day. 

Our numbers were down this year for various reasons and the vibe was tempered by the things a bunch of us are going through (and aren't we all going through everything, all the time?) but there was an influx of gorgeous babies and there was a rainbow unicorn in the water and my most cherished vacation was like a dream from which I wasn't ready to awake. Tough nuggets, big girl. I see so clearly now how going to the same place every year with the same people at the same time is a metaphor for my existence, a microcosm of our lives. The payoffs and the drawbacks, the sun and the sunburn. You laugh and you sing and you cry and you bleed and you sign up to do it all again next year, hoping for the best, and it's all over before you know it. You don't want it all, but you need all the parts to make it whole.

It's nearly September and my son is back in school and I ordered a sweater online and I have high hopes for joining a writing group this fall, trying to embrace the beautiful now, the gate to the unknown. It was a jumbled year on the island for me, I feel like I just wasn't there enough as if there could be such thing as enough, but looking back makes me so grateful for another gift of time and togetherness with my awesome family, and I'm full of love. July 2019 will be here in a blink, but I'm not trying to rush through the days in between. 

Did You Feel the Breeze, My Love...

I have a conflicted relationship with summer, as a season. The weather specifically is not to my liking, I don't need to rehash that bit, but there are other petty annoyances. Summer, as a state of mind, is where it gets complicated. I love the beach and I love my summer vacation life, but now that those elements are behind me, it's hard to say goodbye to that state of mind. It's so brief, yet part of its charm is its brevity. I love change, but transitions are not without challenge, both emotional and practical, and I just know that shit's about to get realllll bittersweet 'round these parts. Yes, it's for sure (past) time that my dearest darling son gets back to school and yes I have so many good times planned on the calendar and as fall's poster child and favorite blue-eyed daughter I cannot wait to crank up the plaid pumpkin foliage fantasy machine but right now, right this second, I'm having a moment. I've been having a series of moments over the past two months, one right after the other, and I'm doing my best to not rush through them. 

This past weekend we went to the Cape to participate in a fundraising race for work and got to linger a bit, before and after. I had a capital-M Moment after we arrived at the old fashioned rented cottage on Saturday afternoon. Mike was off doing errands, HR was hanging out doing his own thing, and I was listening to McCartney on vinyl, drinking a glass of chardonnay and watching the white curtains blow in the breeze and I was so solidly aware that this something to be savored.

The the race itself could not have gone better for me - my pace was better than last year, I felt great the whole time, the scenery was gorgeous and the crowds were inspiring. It was a privilege to share the run with Mike and though the snapshot is fixed in my mind, I do wish I had an actual photograph (I'm sure somebody out there does) of him pounding a beer that someone handed him at mile 5. A true American hero. 

We got a lot of rain and clouds so didn't have any traditional "beach" days but we walked to the beach every day we were there, just because the ocean is so magical and life affirming and when you can walk to it, you absolutely should. Our good friends came along for the weekend and it was great to hang with them and let our kids be little wildlings together. Leaving the Cape on Tuesday was the official end of this whirlwind, travel-heavy summer for me, and it seemed a fitting cut-off, though I'm still processing it all and will be for some time.

Every change of season deserves an intention, and though most of the contents of this one are a given, I'm still making them fall's focus: Be a good person and surround myself with good people. Feel all my feelings, even when they're unpleasant. Notice the moments. Write and read and rest and move around and see some movies be open to everything.

There's more about summer to write, and technically more to live, but that's for another entry.

 

 

Rock Steady

I am not currently on a beach, but I will be on yet another one shortly. My late-summer life is a series of big and little getaways and I'm not complaining and I'm not apologizing or explaining, mostly because the explanations are boring and nobody has time for boring words. By the time I get to writing up this year's family vacation it will be weeks behind me, and I actually relish the opportunity to reflect as well as the challenge of distilling my memories after some space. The idea of taking experiences and making them, possibly, into meaningful pieces of writing vs. just listing and reporting on the particulars is my aspiration for this blog, these days. It's comforting to do things the way I've always done them, it's still  fun to write and maybe even fun to read, but it's about time to do some growing and growth requires disruption. 

In the meantime, I'm trying to make the most of the days between trips. It's all happening all around me, all the time and it's easy for me to overlook. I mean, I like things to be easy, but not everything should be and that's a good thing.

Rest in peace on this day Aretha Franklin, who can never be replaced.

Born in the Sign of Water

This is the face of a woman returned to her proper place. 

You see the ease there? That relief and contentment? Yeah. I'll be wearing it again this weekend as we roll on to our next family beach vacation, which surely lessens the sting of the end of, er, my last vacation. I expect I'll do a proper recap of that one next week, but the moments until I'm on the sand again will pass dolphin-quick as I attempt to conquer a mountain of catch-up work.   

Bye again fer now!