Friends,
I have been working on a new essay for you- I’m playing with ideas of form and rhythm, and I wrote a new song, and I am pretty excited about it, but yesterday when I had the day scheduled to finish the thing I fell to a fast and furious sickness that came back from Ireland with Jakob. I am vertical again. I’ll get that essay together soon. It needs another draft, and I don’t want to just slap it together; I want to give it the time it needs to be the best it can be.
In the mean time, since the fireflies have been out, I wanted to share this piece that I wrote last June, with some fresh edits and thoughts. I love you like crazy- Jes
THIS IS SUMMER
I Have Everything I Need
Last week was hot. I found myself out in the back yard when it was finally cool enough to enjoy being outside, in my pajamas, holding Bear's hand. We’d been making some art together in my journal all week. We make these drawings he calls “Machines,” where he makes a shape, and then I make a shape, and we pass it back and forth until it fills the page. It’s a welcome respite from my primary role as the screen police, and it had me feeling more like a mom. Now I’d coaxed him outside to watch fireflies twinkle all through our little valley. They were everywhere in the garden, filling the open field and lighting up the trees in the distance. We were both delighted.
I live in the house my great-grandmother bought from her older brother. She lived here with my grandparents, and my mother grew up here. It’s 5 minutes from the house I grew up in, so I was here a whole lot as a child, too. I sometimes feel their ghosts here, not haunting, just little pieces of them that are still around and that bring them back for a moment. Like when I found the coffee can full of fishing tackle that smelled so much like my grandfather, or when I found the gallon of paint downstairs with masking tape labeling it in my grandmother’s handwriting. Those are memories that are a little more than just a memory, you know.
Something happened there watching those fireflies that was like that-more than just a memory. I felt a tug on a ribbon that seemed to be suddenly fastened to me from the inside. I felt it tug again, and then it pulled me right off my feet and through time, back to my own childhood, standing in that same backyard at Bear’s age, back when it was my grandmother's backyard. I was looking out over the same open space, watching fireflies while the adults sat in the screenhouse with their rum drinks and their neighborhood gossip.
The first thing I noticed was how light I felt. It was like I was almost floating. So many of the people I would have to say goodbye to were still there. This was before I knew grief. This was summer. Barefoot, still in my swimsuit after dark, the weeks before we had to go back to school stretched out like a lake with no far shore. Summer. I had everything I needed.
I’m telling you, it was vivid, I was there, and then one tug on that ribbon and I was almost back, but kind of in both my bodies at once. My childhood self looked up at my current self, and I heard myself say something, slowly, with both selves in unison: "I am so tired of dread."
Then I was all back in my adult body. I took a slow breath. I looked at Barrett. I looked at the moon.
I treasure my wonder and my playfulness, but I also carry a dread. I wear a big blanket made of everything that could go wrong. Anything that could take what’s precious away from me is spun into a thread and woven in. It’s detailed and impressive, and I have wrapped it around me like I’m ready for a blizzard. I’ve been wearing it without even realizing what it was made of, or how I struggled under the weight of it. I try so hard to pay attention, but I somehow missed this.
I know that people are suffering, I know the wolf is real. I also know it will take more than just my worry to keep him away. There comes a point where we have to roll up our sleeves, free up our hands, and get to work, and that is hard to do with a big old blanket you are trying to keep wrapped around you.
I had to at least try to let it slip off my shoulders, so I did. I worked myself up for some fireworks, but it was easier than I thought it would be. With just a good, solid shrug, it pooled at my feet. I let it sit there on the ground. The fireflies’ twinkle show carried on, and a sweet breeze that smelled like the mint it just rustled was teasing my arms. It sang a little song too. "This is summer. This is summer...”
I look at Bear. I listen to that little breeze ditty, and he tilts his head like he might hear it too. “This is Summer. This is Summer. This is Summer. You have everything you need.”
Here’s a song for you this week - I wrote this one for my niece Sam, but it’s for you too.