It’s 12:25 PM on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, and I’m readying myself for the first day at the pool. My canvas tote bag is packed with sunscreen, sunglasses, a little pouch containing hair ties, lip balm, and cash for the snack bar; and my neatly rolled up beach towel. That bag will accumulate other stuff as the summer wears on but right now it looks like a magazine photo shoot’s idea of a pool tote.
The pool will look perfect, too, just for today. By Monday, the lost and found will already contain a few items. The chairs on the deck and the tables in the pavilion will be just slightly askew, and there will probably be a few leaves floating on the water’s surface. The staff will clean and arrange every day, but the pool never looks quite as sparkling and perfect as it does on day 1.
This is our first summer without kids on the swim team. My younger son is coaching, so we’re still a Dolphins family but it’s not quite the same. I’m focusing on all the ways that this is good, starting with this weekend, which will not be spent preparing for Memorial Day 5K nor writing emails nor answering questions for new team parents. And I still know most of the families and will still go to cheer for the team. I’ll just show up at 9, rather than 6:45. There is always a bright side. There is always a sterling silver lining.
*****
The first day was just as it’s always been; the usual suspects at our usual chairs and the usual crazy children dropping their shoes and towels and clothes on their moms’ chairs and jumping immediately into the far-too-cold water, screaming with glee. It’s a whole new set of children, of course but it felt just like it did in 2012 or so, watching my own children jump into summer with both feet.
We sat on the deck and chatted as my niece and nephew joined the neighborhood’s children in the icy water. They swam and played and complained about the 15-minute “adult swim” break and then we went home to eat spaghetti and meatballs and salad. My nephew, who turns 11 today, ate two plates of spaghetti and then stretched out in a recliner. “Are you OK?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m just really tired.” My niece briefed me - her brother had been up half the night at a sleepover. I put a blanket over him and he was asleep in seconds. He didn’t move for the next two hours. My niece played and drew pictures and flopped on the floor watching “Henry Danger,” the kids’ favorite show. At that point, everyone had arrived home and we relaxed in the family room together until the children’s parents came to pick them up at 10 or so. A lovely evening, really; and an altogether lovely day.
*****
It’s Monday now, but I’m not at work because it’s Memorial Day, a holiday, a free gift of time. It’s 10:45 now and I have been incredibly productive this morning. I realize that incredible productivity is not the point of this holiday but we all have our own ways of celebrating, don’t we?
Sunday was another lovely near-perfect day, sunshine and friends at the pool and a brand-new book to read and a birthday dinner for an 11-year-old boy. It’s going to rain today, or at least it looks like it’s going to rain. I’d rather a third perfect hot summer day, of course, but a rainy holiday has its own charms, including a post-war British novel by Margery Sharp, about whom I will have much to say.
*****
After the morning and afternoon of incredible productivity, I took a walk, and then was trying to decide what to do with the rest of the afternoon. And then my phone rang. Long story short, I was this close (imagine finger and thumb almost touching) to having to drop everything, drive to Virginia to pick up two stranded people and drive them at least halfway to Philadelphia. And then the two stranded people got themselves on a train and said “never mind,” and the afternoon once again stretched before me. Well, a few hours of afternoon stretched before me because it was almost 3 o’clock at that point. The sky had cleared enough that rain seemed only possible, not likely, and so I went to the pool and swam my first outdoor laps of the season. I barely got through 10, but that’s about typical for the first time. I’ll build up my endurance. Meanwhile, the water was glorious (though quite cold), sparkling in the sun. No matter what the calendar says, spring is over, and summer is here. And as always, I’m all for it.
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