Children Bring Adults Down to Their Level in the Summer

The Boston Herald

Before they arrived, summer lived outside my window. I could see it, but I couldn't feel it. Even when I cut the grass, even when I walked barefoot early in the morning, even when I unleashed Molly and let her race down the path and across the football field, even as I raced with her, grass and woods and sky our only companions, summer didn't touch me.

I drove with the sunroof open. I stopped at the Dairy Barn almost every day. I worked in the garden. I played "Grease" at high decibels. I ate fried clams. Still, summer remained an illusion, more idea than fact, like those out-of-reach flowers in a 3-D film.

And then they arrived: three children, ages 12, 10 and 5, and they brought summer with them. It was on their skin and in their hair and behind their smiles and when they walked through the door, summer followed.

Summer has been here now for an entire week because they've been here. Summer fills the house and lights up the house, because they light up the house. It feels like a different world both inside and out. It feels like the world I used to know.

We hurry not to work, but to play.

"Don't forget your towel."

"Who has the suntan lotion?"

"Should I bring a sweatshirt, Beverly?"

"Yes, Shiloh."

"I claim the front seat on the way!"

"I claim the front seat on the way back!”

We go shopping and it's fun because we're shopping for little people, not for big people, and these little people are pleased with everything.

We go to see "Matilda" and we laugh all the way home. We stop at Uncle Frank's to look at his pigeons.

There are Popsicles, Fudgsicles, orange sherbet and mint chocolate-chip ice cream in the freezer and Rice Krispies Treats and Fruit Loops in the cabinets and wet towels hanging everywhere and shoes in all the rooms and Colorforms and coloring books all around and happy, sing-song voices filling the house and it's such sweet, manageable, beautiful chaos.

We play crazy eights. We sit in the living room and tell stories. "Once upon a time there was a girl name Tabitha and a boy named Lucas and they were kissing," Shiloh begins, then doubles over laughing as Tabitha turns pink.

"One day they went out in a rowboat," Xena adds, and on it goes, everyone taking turns, the story evolving in made-up phrases and sentences, growing more outrageous by the minute until it ends finally because everyone is laughing so hard.

"Once upon a time," we begin again - this time a whole different story, an even sillier one.

We ride the waves at the beach. We collect seashells and rocks and glass. We drive with the windows open and the radio blasting. We eat ice cream every day, sometimes twice a day, Blizzards first, then ice-cream cones. We sing and play "We're following the leader.” We don't know, we don't even suspect, that there is anything bad in the world.

Xena gets stung by a yellow jacket. That's the worst thing that happens. It stings right through her bathing suit, and she comes running.

"It hurts, Beverly," she says, but she doesn't cry. We make a poultice with meat tenderizer and the hurt goes away. Later that night I spray the nest, and the next day the yellow jackets are gone.

Xena gets her hair cut. Shiloh buys a hat. They all get their fingernails painted. They take bubble baths.

Such small things make up a life: haircuts, stories, bubble baths, hats. Such small, important things.

The children are going home today and summer will go with them. I know this. Tomorrow I will be concerned, once again, about the bigger world, about whether there is life on Mars or fat in processed vegetables or hope for the Republican Party.

I will resume my role as a responsible, serious adult.

But right now the children are waiting, so I'm going outside to play.