Summer Short 11
Happy Birthday Beth!

At this stage in the game, I have come to understand just enough about life to understand that I do not understand much of anything.

I mean, not very often.

That being said, I have come to grasp this painful and primal truth: sometimes you can do everything right, forever by the book, and still get screwed. You get something you didn’t deserve for seemingly no good reason except for the most annoying one of all, to grow. Obviously, I find this outrageous but every time I march down to the complaints department, it is closed.

Yet miraculously, because we live in a world of infinite paradoxes, the flip side is also true: sometimes you get blessed for no reason. You get something wonderful you didn’t earn or deserve just because. And those two words, just because, can be your salvation.

My sister Beth is one of my just becauses.

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Summer Short 10
For Greg

I wonder if there is a biological reason, perhaps one that is coded in our genes, that requires us to experience fully the heavy pain of loss. As experiences – joy, pleasure, triumph, and achievement- are so damn fleeting. But grief, well, grief endures.

And while not all of us will experience certain joys, certain achievements or pleasures in our lifetime, if we live long enough, we will all know loss.

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Summer Short 9
The Courage to Bear Witness

If I had to come up with the exact opposite phrase that describes my personality it would be easy, breezy. I hate this about myself. Easy breezy… Cover Girl is the vibe I’m shooting for, a mix somewhere between Malibu Barbie and Jimmy Buffet who has bumper stickers like I Brake for Butterflies, or Life is Good on the back of my vintage convertible VW Bug because I don’t give a lick about how all that sun exposure is aging my face.

Even though I do not expect to really master this in my lifetime, I give it all I’ve got. I work at it like I’m studying for an advanced degree. I am just not remotely successful at it. If I didn’t laugh at myself, I’d probably be 10 seconds away from being institutionalized at how hard I try and how far I fall from that intention.
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Summer Short 8
When the Tides Roll In

Yesterday I watched as 2 young boys built a drip sandcastle too close to the water’s edge. In a short time, they had built quite a Disney-esque structure. Sadly, it was soon evident that they had not taken stock of the tides. They hadn’t mapped out their property location sufficiently because by the time I had gotten through 3 chapters of my book, each time they dripped more wet sand on top of their royal sand abode, the ocean tide would come in and claim the outer moat and wall. Soon, the whole infrastructure was in danger. Frantically, they tried to rebuild. They tried once, then twice but by the third breaker, the seawater had turned half of their drip castle into a smooth mound. This is where it got interesting. (In case you were wondering if it ever would.)
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Summer Short 7
No Blooms without the Roots

If you are paying attention, at a certain age you might realize that life unspools in cycles. Some lovely, some painful but unlike the seasons, in no particular order. Things move forward, expand and grow. Gorgeous, amazing things come into your life. You get lifted up and encouraged and feel full and so thankful and ask, what more can I give? If you are lucky, and have as little expectation as possible, you might get a few of these seasons in a row. But just as you are starting to feel entitled, that you’ve got things lined up nicely, and you’ve finally got your act together, the winds of change blow in. You get hit with a huge disappointment or loss and your once open and grateful heart clenches and you feel the urge to pull the drawstring around it just a bit tighter to protect it from the biting wind. Wind can make you feel so helpless. Not to mention exhausted from exposure.

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Summer Short 6
Looking into Mirrors

The news is full of reports of kids being bullied to the point of attempting suicide. People always seem quite shocked by the cruelty that’s happening in America’s schools and playgrounds. I’m baffled by their shock. Nothing new is going on here.

When I was growing up, I lived across the street from the exact doppelgänger of Farkus from A Christmas Story. No joke. Ask anyone who grew up on Fieldston Road who remembers seeing the original Star Wars movie in the theater, say 8 or 9 times. Red hair, freckles, BB gun loaded and ready to shoot at any small creature from his bedroom window. He was your basic nightmare. I heard he had done some hard time later in life which would surprise no one who knew him when he was 13.
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Summer Short 5
Finding the Golden Egg

One day a countryman going to the nest of his goose found there an egg all yellow and glittering. When he picked it up, it was as heavy as lead. He was going to throw it away because he thought a trick had been played upon him but on second thought, took it home instead only to discover, to his delight, that it was an egg of pure gold.
Every morning the same thing occurred and he soon became rich by selling his eggs.
As he grew rich, he grew greedy and thinking he could get all the gold eggs the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find nothing. – Aesop

We want it all. But being human, we can’t have it all.
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Summer Short 4
On Expansion

I finally read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankel this winter. I believe summer should be reserved for lighter reading material, Girl on the Train etc. While reading, I found myself in his description of those who were mentally strong in the face of such horrible adversity. Frankel wrote, “Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom.”

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Summer Short 3
Gathering Branches

There have been lots of big, thundery rain storms this summer. The kind that scare you even though you are way too big to be scared by thunderstorms anymore. The wind doesn’t howl, it screams. The rain doesn’t fall, it is driven, hard, merciless, and torrential. The trees do not sway, they creak, bend and moan, their fine limbs ripped away. Sometimes they are fully uprooted.

Being human, it is inevitable that you will be hurt and that you will hurt others. Unintended hurts are as common as small branches scattered on the ground after a storm. But I have found that it is the unacknowledged hurts that really uproot us.

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Summer Short 2
Life on the Playground

When my kids first entered school I noticed how little things had changed since I was in pigtails. The alphabet song was still going strong, the mixed bouquet of Elmer’s Glue and water-based paints still lingered in the air, kids still ate their sandwiches with the crust carefully cut off and sat in circles on the floor with their legs crossed, as we used to say, Indian Style. Being PC wasn’t really a thing then.
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