The hardest thing about summer is knowing how quickly it goes. Around now, at the top of June, the trees have become so full of green that they jostle each other for space in the breeze. School will be out in two weeks here in New York and the kids are vibrating with of anticipatory freedom. Oscar hasn’t gone to bed before 9 or slept in after 6 for at least three weeks — the stretching days launch him from bed awake and already thundering down the hall. We have little boys all over these days. Collecting good rocks and bugs from the creek in the front yard; leaping through the sprinkler, laughter streaming off smiles so big they break your heart.
It’s impossible but I try not to miss a minute of it. The prim little voice who likes to remind me how much time I’m wasting knows she’s been beat — there’s no match for the soaking sound of the sun. There are too few of these sacred days and I won’t waste a moment with tight schedules and complicated plans.
Oscar got a fresh trim today. I avoid giving him haircuts — they have this ability to speed the clock forward. Out from behind his hair, the changes in his face are suddenly clear. His jaw has narrowed, his face a bit longer and a few freckles have dusted the bridge of his nose. I’m always shocked at how a little less hair ages him instantly, drawing him a little further from me and a few inches closer to becoming his own man.
“Oh what will I do?” I ask him “What will I do when I can’t see you here like this, every day?”
“You’ll come to my house, Mama. It will be right next to yours, I will never be very far away.”
I haven’t figured out how to freeze time, but I’m sending you a few things that I hope will help make it count.
xx M
I am a beach person married to a non-beach person, so if I want my non-beach person to join me, we need to keep the beach mostly away from him. This tent is excellent — I can set it up and take it down myself (on the days when it’s just Oscar and me) and it creates plenty of shade for the three of us when our blazingly white skin needs a break from the sun.
I never, really never, thought I would have this much fun working out. I never thought I would be talking out loud to my TV at 6AM but I can’t help myself. I am linking you to the one that got me hooked — a routine to Cold Hearted Snake (c-c-c cold hearted) Oh, and if you don’t want an amazing free dance work out, check out what reader
sent me with EmK fit on youtube!)I just need to say thank you to Nicole Taylor for this unreal recipe for peach and molasses chicken. It’s sweet, it’s tart, it’s salty — everything you could want for a summer barbecue sauce. This one is an “OMG can you give me the recipe” situation.
Make face-melting grilled chicken
De La Soul won the rights to their masters last year! Their whole catalogue is available to stream now, which is excellent because a summer day is automatically better when you’re listening to Eye Know.
Listen to 3 Feet High and Rising
Everyone can do with a cribbage board — especially one small enough to tuck into your carry on. Jory taught me to play this when we first began dating and we always bring one with us on trips for a round or two after Oscar has gone to bed.
Handmade Travel Cribbage Board
This piece from the lovely
on how we’ll get by once the internet has explodedAn actual cure for The Doom from the excellent
A long but funny and honestly shocking read about eating only potatoes and the white-tower-ism of modern science by the funny
A rational read about what happens when AI eats the world from
for the Atlantic
Thanks for mentioning The Potato People, Melissa!