Currently

It’s that time between seasons when the bathing suits and swim goggles hang up next to the hoodies in the hallway. When we divide our days between cozy blankets in the evenings, but coat our shoulders in sunscreen to guard against the afternoon sun. 

Last week, a camping road trip to visit J’s brother in Portland. Two weeks before that, J and I went on a road trip from Chicago to Nashville. This month, we stay home. Morning routines. Evening rituals. 

Soccer games and ballet practice. Piano and gymnastics. Homework and reading charts. Paint brushes and watercolors on the dining room table. The hammock hanging from the back deck. Jars of freshly canned plum compote from my brother-in-law’s backyard plum tree. 

Violet gave up her afternoon nap months ago. But, she is exhausted after school, so we pile on the couch with dozens of books: The Gruffalo, Little Blue Truck, Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy, Room on the Broom, Give a Moose a Muffin, and Mr. Magee and the Camping Spree just to name a few. 

My nightstand is piled high with books, but I am working to finish My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray. My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan, Ike and Kay by James MacManus and The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware were all snagged just last week at the library. Even though I'm not sure when I'll find the time to read all the pages in just three weeks time. We just listened to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Penderwisk: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits and One Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall on our ten hour road trip. I'm listening to Hamilton by Ron Chernow and The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder with the girls on audible. 

  

In an effort to kill all the germs in the house and clean out the camping dirt, I launder every last one of our sheets, linens and sleeping bags. Corral the missing pillowcase pairs and fold into packages for storing. Domestic hysteria, I thought, but in truth, what I’d wanted to do after all the choas of travel was perhaps better accomplished with bedding: cleaned, sorted, tidied. Thread counts promising what words cannot. It's what I'm hoping the slower days of fall will bring. 

These words, spoken by President Obama, “Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost, a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11.”

This, too, from Laura Ingalls Wilder: “It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.”

This week's project: charitable words. Mercy. Small kindness. Today it seems especially poignant to remember those words. To enjoy the sweetness of a crisp, fall apple. To feel the sun on my face. To enjoy the fleeting, fragility of life. 

Soon, fall. Jacket's for the morning walk to school. Afternoon bike rides. 

We’re ready.