The Sounds of Summer

@MadeleineDiaries

Relief has finally come, in the form of a lake.

I might stop whining for a while.

It took a few days, but I am now officially fully enjoying summer, and my (almost complete) vacation from motherhood. The quiet in my house. The ridiculously half-full laundry basket. With only three of us at home, I don’t even need to run laundry every day. Except when my six-year-old swims at camp and comes back with a wet mess in his bag. But it is such a minor inconvenience, I barely notice it. Which tells you a lot about my current state of mind.

Dinners are barely dinners at this point. Only one child at the table, willing to eat the same Caprese-style pasta or Caprese-style salad every night – and every day at camp when leftovers go into his lunchbox. He hasn’t complained so far. Neither has my husband. So, I will keep going on this lazy, unimaginative streak until somebody says something.

It took about a week, but all lingering presence of my three older children has slowly disappeared. There are no more remaining dirty clothes found under beds. No more clean clothes still running their way through the laundry baskets. No more braces elastic bands found everywhere on the dining table or the kitchen counters. Or needing to be shipped to camp. Everybody’s vital needs seem to have been fulfilled, for now.

We have another ten days of this bliss.         

Because it is bliss. I am finally capable of admitting it, almost without guilt. I have been savouring every minute of quiet. Of freedom from household chores. From my teenagers’ mess and stolen cups and spoons. From fights and frustrations and constant complaining. From my name – “mom” being my name - being called fifteen times per minute.

It all started this weekend, I guess. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I can confidently say that I had a good time. I relaxed. I savoured the present moment and did not wish I was anywhere else. I wanted to be just where I was. Not change anything, for once.

It was the lake, the magic of the lake.

@MadeleineDiaries

We’ve been there before, so many times. The children loved it when they were little. The first time we went, I was just a couple of weeks shy of my daughter’s due date. Feeling so heavy while stepping on the pebbles, the hot wood of the piers leading to the grown-up swim area. My son was two and a half, I wrapped him and squeezed him silly in one of the green-and-white striped beach towels provided by the hotel. How I love these towels. I can still see his face, feel the pure, unadulterated joy I had never experienced quite in that way before having children. I wanted to seal this moment into my memory, and I did. I no longer have the black maternity swimsuit I bought for the occasion, but I remember it vividly. The contrast with my overly pale skin. The weight of my belly into the stretched fabric in the front, which I thought, would be much too big, even close to my term. How adorably foolish. The suit fit perfectly, of course. And I knew I wasn’t looking my best on that beach, and I was exhausted, breathless, dying for that time to be over.  But also, feeling so complete.

This year I felt lighter, as light as I’m sure I was dying to feel back then, when it was a struggle to sleep and just roll out of bed. I’m still just as pale, however, if not even paler. My husband commented on it, which he never does. The situation must be quite dire. It led me to question my choice of bikini. Does it make me look even paler? That new just bikini that I spent too much money on, after wearing the same shabby swimsuits for years. Also, what is it about this bulge on my belly when I haven’t been pregnant in seven years? I guess a part of me is still expecting to look like I did in my twenties. Such foolishness, I tell you. I’m always one to scoff at all the talk about “summer body” for women, the one never buying magazines and claiming to be above that sexist stuff. So, it’s a bit painful to admit that I did feel quite self-conscious on my first day on that beach, looking at younger, slimer figures around me.

But it didn’t matter. As long as I could lie down in the sun with my book. Or without. Which I did, luxuriously, after swimming across the lake. My husband took our boy, bless his soul. As I lay motionless on the wooden deck, I suddenly noticed all the sounds around me. The children giggling and splashing, falling off the rolling log attached to the pier right behind me. Others jumping off the diving board in the distance. The lifeguard getting upset at them. “One person at a time”, she yelled. This lifeguard yelled a lot, it turned out. She was bent on rules, taking her job seriously. But I didn’t mind. When was the last time I heard someone getting upset at splashing children on a perfect early summer day? The lifeguard, as well, sounded just like summer. As did the old lady calling her husband to sit on the deck with his feet in the water, so he could better hear her, paddling in her canoe. It seemed obvious that the husband was fine where he was, lounging on his chair, not eager in the least to be nagged at, questioned, reproached.

But it was all good. The yelling, the grumbling, the splashing, the giggles. The deck rocking slowly under me as people paced back and forth. How I had longed for these sounds, without knowing it. Longed for this striped towel, laid flat onto the deck. This moment when I did not need to think about momentarily picking up my children from school. About making dinner, supervising homework, folding yet another load of laundry. I could lay there like I did in my teenage years, with my friend M. at île d’Yeu. Just to rest, just to absorb the light and the warmth, just to be there without a care in the world.

It only lasted an hour, that moment. And another one the next morning, while my boy was at the kids’ club – such a blessing, these kids’ clubs. But it renewed me so deeply. I could feel my body shedding the layers of fatigue, of weariness. Of madness, also. For the first time in weeks I wasn’t obsessing about things, about all the stuff that needed to go into camp bags, or drawers, or anywhere out of sight. Packing for that weekend, in comparison, was a breeze, and I could finally let go of my weird fixation.

All of it thanks to that lake, I think. The lake made it all worth it again. It made me love my children again. Watch longingly the young families with their babies and toddlers at the beach, at breakfast, all around the hotel. Remembering how we had been one of them. How happy I was to be roaming the halls with my ebullient children in tow. For a while, there was always a new baby. Once we went there over Memorial Day, when I was seven-months pregnant with the last, unplanned one. I was quite terrified, and convinced my life was over. It was the most challenging thing I had experienced, before moving back to New York last summer.

When I look back, I would like to rewrite the story of that weekend. Tell my younger, scared self that everything was going to be okay. That I would be overwhelmed, and exhausted, all the time. But also, that seven years later, while my other kids were at camp, I would still have a little boy with me, holding my hand in the hotel lobby. I would not be an empty nester quite yet. I would have more love than I knew what to do with. A house full of screams and laughter. Where my kids maybe wouldn’t read quite as much as I did but also would not be half as lonely. They wouldn’t always need books, because they would have each other. They might do a better job at life than I did. Be more resourceful, less prudent, less scared. Follow their instincts and go for the big prize. Sometimes deviate from rules and be the better for it. Have more faith, be more optimistic, maybe.       

Who knows. I certainly do not have the recipe for success, and constant happiness. Who does, really.

All I know is that thanks to the magic of that lake, I can love my children again and be ready – almost – for when they come back.