Summer

Whew, so this is summer. 103 degrees yesterday and in the 90s all week. I was walking with a friend yesterday and she was commenting that we Northwesterners might just need to get used to the fact that we have hot summers and cold winters. We keep thinking we live in the most temperate climate ever, and then bam! hot days with no air conditioning and freezing winter snowdrifts without proper snowploughs.

I was looking through some of my posts since April and realized that this has already been a great summer on the weekend adventure front. We've taken day trips to Bainbridge, Vashon, Deception Pass, Rattlesnake Ridge, and Whidbey, and camped or stayed on Camano Island, San Juan Island, and Deception Pass. It's fun to have a transportable, active toddler who delights in adventure.

This past weekend on San Juan Island was pretty exceptional. For one thing, we confirmed that our tent is truly waterproof. We were lying in our bed around 9 p.m., staring up at the window in our tent ceiling while lighting flashed and thunder crashed. Cora was fast asleep between us and our whispered conversation alternated between Hey, this is really cool, to Oh wow, I hope we don't get incinerated. We spent most of the night listening to the downpour snap against the sides of our tent. We awoke at about 6 to almost 90-degree weather and spent the day in and out of the lakes that surrounded our campsite. We traveled with friends and Cora enjoyed spending time with their cute daughters, a 3-year-old and a 16-month-old. Their favorite pastime was to tromp up a grass hill and slide or run down a dusty path until they were covered in dirt from head to toe. We played tag (including a pretty hilarious game of freeze tag; imagine two toddlers trying to get the concept of standing still while everyone else runs about). And we saw whales! We took a day trip to a nearby waterfront whale-watching park and after staring forever at the water with no luck, we were stunned on our way out to see a pod of Orcas breaking the surface of the water below. Cora got swept up in the excitement and shouted "Yay Orcas!" when they surfaced, and nodded knowingly at us when they went back, "Shy whale."

Have you ever traveled on a ferry to an island? If not, you must put it on your list of Things You Must Do. Salty wind in your face, sun high in the sky, gulls circling, mind-boggling views of rugged coastlines and the rise of evergreens against mountain ranges, and when the air hits you it's so cold no matter what the temperature of the day that all you can feel is this blissful awareness of what it is to be alive, right then, a tiny being in the middle of a life.

As I mentioned before, my wanderlust is in full swing. We're thinking about more upcoming weekend adventures, planning an early autumn vacation (we haven't been out of town for longer than a few days since winter of '07). In general, I spend a lot of my wakeful moments making lists about what needs to be done to get to The Next Big Stage. In the mornings, I have distracted walks chatting with Cora about our surroundings and thinking about the story arc and next chapter of this maybe-novel I'm writing, while imagining the trees I hope we'll have in the yard of our next home, while jotting down mental notes about the projects we need to tackle in our current house. Present Moment Zen Masters would disapprove of my mental state but I can't say it's not exciting.

Sometimes I still think about going back to work, other times I think about getting pregnant and buying a hypoallergenic puppy so that it can wander through our house, shake like a dog, and not make Brian sneeze. Often I look into Cora's eyes and I can't even believe how beautiful they are, so lovely and sweet that all I want to do is kiss her, other times I dance around the kitchen trying to make her a decent sandwich while she shrieks Snack! Snack! More Chips! Maaaaaammmmmaaaa! And I have to remind myself that her job is to get my attention as much as possible, and that she doesn't have the tiniest iota of an idea that I used to exist before she did. That makes me smile.