I'm not dead yet. . .

Waiting for Smore time!
Originally uploaded by CyberJazzDaddy.

So summer comes. And with it, expectations of free time and relaxation. Can’t say why we have these expectations because it never works out that way. I imagine it’s some toxic combination of amnesia and optimism.

Free time always seems to become more busy than the dictated schedule of work or school. Closer examination of this phenomenon has given me a passing appreciation of things like golf and fishing. Activities I could never understand the attraction for, and especially their televised versions. But with the surging rush of time moving forward ever faster, I can see how entertaining oneself with some activities that lapse into utter boredom can give the sensation of slowing things down a bit, making things last a bit longer. Allow one to catch one’s breath.

But here we are, none the less. In the part of the year that seems like a reward for sticking it out through the winter, just like the coolness of Fall will be like an apology for the fact that it’s coming again. But in the lingering evenings of small town summers, we breath deep, close our eyes and try to hold the kindness of these moments frozen in our lungs for as long as we can, before we have to release it as a memory we breathe out and gift back to the universe.

In days like these we small town folk sometimes take walks with our wives in the dusky hours after the kids are in bed. With our competent teen daughters on the sofa in front of a favorite T.V. show (and our cell phone in our pocket in case the other kids wake and revolt), we move down the porch steps and out into the evening air.

As we walk, we pass many who’ve had the same idea. So many at times it’s as if we’re on an invisible carnival causeway (but without the barkers yelling at you and without the faint tint of vomit smell in the air). We nod hello and smile to those we pass, picking up our conversations as soon as we’re out of earshot again.

Sometimes we give our wives back yard fire pits for Mother’s day. The fire pits they fell in love with when we borrowed one for the daughter’s 16th birthday party last October. And sometimes our wives are so excited when they see you carrying it around the house to the back yard that they come bursting out the back door, leaping at you and wrapping herself around you, letting you know that this time, you chose wisely.

After getting it put together, we get the pieces of tree limbs we’ve been chopping and saving up for just such an occasion since last fall, and make a small, enclosed fire. We gather the family and, prepared with graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate bars and sticks, engage the obligatory fireside activity with cheery little faces and the comforting smell of burning wood.

Later we have the gutter repaired that this now burning limb took out when it crashed down during a fitful windstorm weeks before. Inside we’ve hung blinds to shut out the yard lights springing up around the neighborhood that is exacerbating our wife’s insomnia.

We watch the changes the new owners of the house next door make. The house so recently owned by the little old lady we knew since our arrival. Since her passing, we knew that, of course, this house would change hands and alterations would come. But it still produces mixed emotions.

Nice Hispanic gentlemen are renting it now. We’ve nodded cordial hellos to then in passing. They seem nice. We haven’t met them in a meaningful way yet though. They wake up early and are off to work, and come back late, and stay inside a great deal. We hope that soon we’ll be able to make introductions.

We watch as our red headed sons ransack our garages and use our tools without permission to take several old broken bikes and Frankenstein them into a new useful vehicle of summer freedom. We later hear how this first creation blew a tire coming over a curb and bent the rim.

Undaunted he rises up again, and with the permission of his friend’s parents, makes a second attempt at a creation using the scrap-cycles in their garage. This one also suffers an ill fated demise as the back axel locks up beyond repair mid trip somewhere.

It’s at this point we realize, with a touch of shame, that we are now compelled by paternal duty to buy him a new bike that will not dash his plans and hopes at every turn. And so we do. He is so pleased, that on several occasions, even after the original beaming hugs of appreciation, he still thanks us before snuggling down to sleep, still vibrating with the days excitement of his new independent journeys. His too long red locks seem always windblown now from his constant motion.

He is also pleased at the frequency this transport allows him to visit with the new little cutie that he has taken an affection for.

Sometimes, we also have to get a little extra help with our younger two. We see a professional and get tips that we originally scoff at, but when we implement are like magic beans tossed at first aside but which erupt with a vibrant new growth that we didn’t think was possible.

As per instruction, we take extra, specially structured play time with each of the boys each day, and they respond. For our 9 year olds it looks like simply playing ball before school everyday. But like a miracle, the rides to the last days of school transform. A short trip that was once a dark scribble because of all the nagging and scolding that it took to get us to the car.

A short trip that more often ended in a huffy little scuff up to the school, head low, shoulders high, and not even a look back. Suddenly, he’s singing during the ride, and looking around with bright eyes. And when I ask him what he’s singing, he sings out loud and strong the verses he’s just made up. On another day, once the car is stopped he pops up with a unsolicited hug and kiss and then skips off, throwing a smile and a wave back as he goes.

With our youngest we participate in a battery of friendly tests, that to him feel like play. But we are actually participating in an evaluation to determine recommendations for school in the fall. They determine what we knew, that he is developmentally delayed, but because of his progress with the new help we’re getting, they don’t feel he should be classified as autistic any longer.

He’ll participate in a pre-readiness class this summer, and then in August we’ll re-assess what extra classroom helps he’ll need for the Fall. He smiles and charms everyone he interacts with. We look at him and are charmed too, that is, of course, until he becomes Godzilla again coming in for the attack and signaling that the wrestling on the floor must begin.

At times, we even hold our daughters, our grown daughters, as their eyes glisten with the disappointment of a boy who has graduated and now breaks promises to call or visit because he has gotten distracted and gone off with his guy friends. We hold her, too, because she is worried about what the fall will bring when he goes off to college. She is wise and understands much, but the heart has to walk each step of the journey on it’s own, and understanding often doesn’t help. But the boy is kind and gentle and they talk much. He doesn’t want to see her hurt and is good with an apology (and a special ice cream outing).

He’s a good kid, and he is good for her, and to her. We father’s comment to our daughters on how it’s best to learn to have these talks about misunderstandings now, because she’ll be having them for the rest of her life. Her parents still do.

We do all this, and it isn’t even June yet. We breathe in another deep breath and hold it . . .hold it. . .trying not to let it slip away. . .