What I Did During My Summer Vacation

I clearly remember having moments throughout my childhood when I would think about how one day, as a grown-up, I would no longer have a summer vacation.  I knew that I would leave school and say “Goodbye” to three hot months of little obligation.  Little did I know that even as an adult I would still spend those three hot months a little differently than the other nine.  I would shirk responsibilities that were safe to shirk.  I would space out.  I would succumb to my impulsive nature.

I know summer is upon us when I start thinking about fresh corn from farmstands and all things nautical. I know summer is winding down when I think about trips to Western Massachusetts and plaid.

This summer, like most summers, I switched gears and all my usual activities (blogging, arting and crafting, tweeting, promoting, and selling) were tabled, and this is what I did during my summer vacation:

• I read the following books in this order: Parachutes and Kisses, Inventing Memory: A Novel of Mothers and Daughters, sTori Telling, Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, Whacked, Beverly Hills Adjacent, Girls in Trucks, The Group, Commencement, and A Good Man is Hard To Find.
• I traveled to our beach house with friends and had friends visit NYC.
• I ran into friends from days of yore all over town.
• I took my mother rafting in the Adirondacks.  We also went ziplining.
• I visited my father at “The Farm” where he and his girlfriend have alpacas, ducks, and peacocks.  While upstate, we went to a county fair.
• My mother’s partner and I threw a party for my mother’s sixtieth birthday.
• I ate too much ice cream.
• And most importantly, I played, played, played with Wee-One.

What I did this summer was live in the moment. I rarely stopped to take a picture and I never to stopped to write because I just wanted the fully experience being in the “here and now.”

But autumn must be approaching because I am contemplating going to the Upper East Side to browse at Ralph Lauren, and my thoughts keep straying from the present to the past and the future. I am full of nostalgia and I am making plans for our recently booked fall trip to Western Massachusetts. I am no longer in “the here and now.”

So as to not get lost and to regain focus, I will pick up where I left off in June. It is time to learn, make, and write. So for those of you wondering, yes, this blog entry is a return, not a goodbye.