"The summer of my discontent"

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you." -  Langston Hughes 

On June 21, summer officially began.  The longest day of the year, began with an early rise on my part and a walk...a long walk.  By the end of June, I was wrapped tighter than saran wrap over a fruit bowl.  Teaching can do that to a person.  Particularly an English teacher who still labored over whether her students would ever be able to differentiate between a noun and a verb.  For ten months, I paid attention to 130 students and their needs, their accomplishments and their deficits.  I wasn't paying attention to me, my body.  I didn't pay attention to my personal life. All of which needed a great deal of attention as I found out walking up the steep hill by my home.  

For some reason, I never really liked summer as a young person.  I do now.  I think it was because I was then left to my own devices.  I was allowed to make my own choices and the routine was changed. That was never easy for me. I didn't have to bother with decision-making when I was in school. All the decisions were made for me 180 plus days a year. When we reach adulthood, we are often no prepared for the difficult decisions we will have to make on our own, by ourselves with no one's intervention.

Summer brings heat.  Summer brings sweat.  When I was a kid, I hated both.  I hated feeling uncomfortable.  Central air was not in the 60's lexicon.  I did love swimming, the beach and those Rocket Popsicles  you bought at the beach's food stand at Sylvan Lake.  You had to eat them really fast but they still managed to melt all over...I didn't care.  I doubt any kid cared.  Swimming at the lake meant a full-fledged swimming lesson by my mother.  Mom insisted we all knew how to swim and thus came the benchmarks.  She'd hold me underneath my stomach and I'd kick my legs and move my arms.  She taught me how to float if I got tired. There were numerous trips down the lake's slide which was great preparation for handling the deep end of the lake.Then came the summer of firsts.

There was a floating dock at Sylvan Lake.  Anyone who could swim to the dock could certainly swim and didn't need any supervision. I wanted to swim on my own and insisted that I was ready. Ma let me go.  I could hear the doubt in her voice.  I think she felt I wasn't ready but that wasn't up to her on that day.  I wanted to be ready. I was going to swim to that dock, climb up the dock's ladder and jump off that dock and swim back.  How difficult it must of been for her to let me go.

I ran down the beach and jumped into the water.  I dunked my head in and out  and pretended that I was a mermaid.  I thrashed my arms and I thrashed my legs to the dock.  I kept reaching and stretching.  I breathed in and out and dunked my head because it felt so good.  I dunked my head to see was underneath the surface of the lake. All of sudden, I had hit the aluminum platform of the dock.  I gasped and there it was.  The dock!  The ladder!  I had made it.  I had done what it took seven or eight summers to do. I climbed up the ladder and I saw my mother looking at me.  I waved to her and jumped back into the lake.

I swam back and ran up the beach.  I embraced my mother and yelled joyfully, "I did it!  I did it Ma! I swam to the dock!!!"  "So you did," Mom said quietly.  "So you did."  She hugged me and then I got to buy ice cream but not before a sandwich.  Mothers...

I think about all of the challenges I've had.  Then I think about Sylvan Lake.  Every time I have been posed with an obstacle or a problem, I thrash around. I often dunk my head.  Then I surface from the water and I breathe and I climb the ladder of that dock.  Summer may not be my favorite season, but as seasons go, I'm learning to embrace the heat, the sweat and the relief of knowing that I can swim.