I am accumulating houseplants and pets. This makes me suspicious. This is a transformation, a direct contradiction of the bylaws of the committee of Me.

Across the windowsill above the sink, they’ve started to line up — the coleus she planted in preschool, barely kept alive for two years. A strawberry plant gifted from family. Lemon balm spontaneously added to the cart at Trader Joe’s two days ago, in a fit of nostalgia. A hen-and-chick pulled by the kid from a crumbling curb-side planting in San Francisco, toted home in her suitcase. Basil. Philodendron.

What is happening? My best guess: the experiment is working. When we yanked the pull string on the dervish of our Big Move, the objective was simplification. Slow down, trim away the crushing demands we’d built into our lives. Require less.

Make Space.

Space to breathe. Space to see. Space to pause. Space to find the horizon, to think, to stretch out our arms and welcome the new. Welcome the mess of life. Welcome each other in again.

When I’m very quiet, I can see that our life has loosened at the edges, widened its corners. There are tentative signs that we’ve got sustenance to spare. It’s possible that our cups are now more full than empty and we’re ready to share.

Maybe I can take care of a houseplant. And some chickens. Maybe I’ve found the space.

And that was it. Closing ceremonies, tears, picnic surrounded by wildflower meadows, fish pond, a surprise gelato cart, picnic blankets pulled together under a shade tree, funny muddy kids, and our good, good people. Our new people. We love our people, and what a comfort to know we’ll return to them in September. Already, we’re plotting sleepovers and cocktail nights, meetups at the river, and more. God, I love summer.

The main thing is, I don’t have to pack a lunchbox for 79 days.
The main thing is, we can sleep as long as want, wake up to cat attacks, full sun, lawnmowers growling, the sprinklers already off for the day, grass still misted, warm breeze pushing in the curtains.
The main thing is, we did it–another year down, this one especially fretful, at first, until we found our place and our thriving and our new friends.
The main thing is, nothing but salad for dinner.
The main thing is, we have a sweet, gold Westfalia that needs to be washed, vacuumed out, started up, and stocked. (I remember once my brother inherited an ancient shell of a car that’d been stored in our grandparents’ pole barn, and when he started the engine, dozens of acorns blasted out of the tailpipe in a cloud of blue smoke — precious squirrel cache annihilated just like that.)
The main thing is, despite a niggling list of freelance assignments piling ever higher (thank you, thank you, friends and universe), she’s old enough to disappear inside chapter books while I earn.
The main thing is, hammock time.
The main thing is, school is out, summer is in, we have chickens in our laundry room, and the family is coming over to swing hammers and sling lemonade, Coop or Bust.

Mama, can you stay right in this aisle? she asks worriedly, knobby knees and legs dangling over the edge of the library chair. Of course, I reassure. She tucks her chin down and is swept away by Ellen Tebbits’ difficulties with woolen underwear. I scan the shelves and once again slide out The Mysteries of Edward Tulane, skim, nod yes.This will be our next out-loud book.

My favorite day is library day. We know the shelves so well, make a beeline for our favorite sections, and in minutes our cloth grocery bag is stuffed with pounds of books. At home, we heave the bag onto the dining table and feel rich. We snuggle under a blanket feet-to-feet, or wiggle into the hammock.

She’ll cry out with delight or surprise at a plot twist and recount it for me. I admire this. Unlike her, I turn into a growling beast at the slightest hint of libris interruptus and I will not break the sanctity of the storyspace by “telling you what it’s about.” She, on the other hand, wants to share like a gossip. I encourage this with murmurs and exclamations. Oh? … Mmmm … I think I remember that bit …

I hope fervently that she’ll always want to share remarkable events, surprises, slights, questions. So far, she does the same with playground news. Sometimes she comes home troubled. I don’t think I should tell you, mama … but I need to tell you …

So we talk about honesty, and being a good friend, and how sometimes someone will ask you to keep a secret in your heart like keeping a yucky, spoiled apple in your pocket. If a secret makes you feel bad, or worried, or scared, your trusted grownups will help you. We talk about Ralph S. Mouse’s confession of the wrecked motorcycle, and being forgiven. Patrick’s betrayal of the secret Indian and cupboard, and Omri’s wrath. What it must feel like to hide behind a curtain as the powerful Oz, when you’re only a humbug.

~~

We cleared out her cubby today, fuzzy slippers and spare mittens hauled home, the back corners swept clean of small treasure debris — stones, leaf skeletons, bits of colored beeswax, bottlecaps. She takes me to her desk, tells me she’ll miss it. In twenty-four hours this magical, trying, testing, thriving year will arrive at summer intermission. Strawberry lemonade, cooing doves, the sulphur of early fireworks, flipping our pillows to the cool side.

We walk underneath the maples. Oh, I love the way this kind of tree makes the light glow … We stop for $1 ice cream cones and she makes me eat most of hers. Too sweet. She likes the cone part best.