Summer Intersections

Summer.  I’ve always loved summer.  More the idea than the season.  Time seems to be suspended.  Kind of like watching a drop of dew roll off a leaf in slow motion…you know, constantly moving until that one millisecond where it seems to slow down and stop, right before it gains momentum and falls off the leaf onto the ground.  Summer is like that.  A slowing down of sorts with those sublime moments where time stops for just a minute.  Whether it’s sitting on the porch, reading a book in the hammock, traveling, or time at the ocean. 

This summer was filled with those sublime moments, and it gets harder every year when it’s time to get back to the regular routine.  Day trips to the beach, ordinary days at home and travel.  Little moments suspended in time: ocean waves crashing; the roar of hydroplanes; showing my boys the school where my dad taught me how to ride a bike and the bush at the end of the street where I used to pick blackberries;  driving by the house we lived in which seemed much bigger in my mind’s eye; hanging with family in their backyard on a beautiful Pacific Northwest evening;  cousins planning and setting up a lemonade stand. 

I was having one of those moments on our last evening in Seattle.  Enjoying the gorgeous weather, Mt. Rainier was out, the sun was glistening on Elliott Bay, everyone was happy.  I wanted to be suspended in that moment forever.  From where we were sitting, Scott pointed out a street sign: Virginia St.  He asked if I would take a picture of it.  I took one, but then saw the street sign for Pike Place.  I took a picture of the two signs.  The intersection of Pike Place and Virginia St, represented, for me, the juxtaposition of my life.  Longing to be in Seattle, one home, a little longer but also ready to return to another home, Virginia.  Suspended in time between the two.  It made me a little less sad about leaving Seattle, somehow.  Maybe it was the thought that the two places really can exist together…it doesn’t have to be either/or, sometimes, it is “and.”

So as summer comes to an end, and the natural rhythm of life continues, I hope I will be a little more mindful of sublime moments.  I hope to live more in the “and” than the “either/or”, more moments right before the dew drop falls.  I know they happen all year.  I’m just not as aware of them during the busy-ness of the school year. Too busy to look for them, I suppose.  I’m sure they are in there between the making of the lunches, the getting out the door, the getting the homework done…they are there somewhere, at the intersection of Pike Place “and” Virginia Street.