Summer sensations

Giving in, finally

We’re at the point in summer where everyone is talking about how short summer feels. “It’s going so fast. I can’t believe it’s August,” says one parent—but really every parent. “How many more weeks are you in camp?” “We’ve got to get to the beach before it’s over,” says another, aloud to nobody in particular, in disbelief at this real-time realization. 

Whatever executive function turns mothers everywhere into Olympian-level logistics operators during the other three seasons seems to give way to more chaos in the summer. I’m in favor of this loosening, a willingness to let momentum and serendipity trump rigor and routine, more open to the possibility that winning in summer is being out at the right time to see the fireflies, making the s’mores on the waning coals, going to see live music followed by an 8:30 ice cream that disrupts the possibility of a smooth bedtime. 

There’s constant movement, and that kinetic quality is unmooring, but also the appeal. Where are you this week? What about this one? Everyone is always going somewhere: to this camp or that, on a family trip, a road trip. The in-laws are coming and going. We’ve already been to Maryland, then back in Brooklyn for a week, then upstate, then back to Brooklyn last weekend to see cousins visiting from Berlin. There’s still the chapter with the other grandparents to come, and a few more weeks of camps, and a 70th birthday party for an aunt in Pennsylvania. That gets us somewhere towards late August. 

A heatwave yesterday wooed us to our local swim hole, affectionately named, Deep Hole. We only had an hour, and grabbed some towels and our books, though if we were being realistic there wasn’t time to both swim and read. The air temperature registered 98 degrees, and Julian was deflated from being outdoors at camp all day, plus an ac-less school bus ride back, then truly ecstatic when his butt hit the cold water, ecstatic again when his head went under. 

swim hole ecstasy

I wrote last summer about how visceral summer is, and I am still there. It’s inescapable. It’s full of feeling.  There’s so much moisture. There’s so much itching. There’s ice, sweat, salt, sand, the drippy fruit, the greasiness of sunscreen that we diligently slather on the squirming kids every morning. There’s bits of water balloons, a drippy nozzle of a hose, grass clipping stuck to sticky legs.  There’s tangled hair from sweating on top of sweating, the smoke from model rockets blasting off, the scabs from the mosquito bites, and a tick on Julian’s back on the first day of camp. 

model rocket smoke

I see three tiers of tan lines on Ada’s waist, the imprint of goggle straps after a day at the pool, a blister on the side of my left forefinger from playing tennis, and red currants squished under the kids’ seats in the car, where tiny flies are quick to accumulate. There are ants that keep invading our kitchen because we don’t take the compost out fast enough and I squash them to the sound of the thunder rolling in almost every late-afternoon. 

Ada tripped over her brother’s backpack during a harried car exit the other night and skinned her knees. They dripped with blood, her face dotted with tears. There was gauze and bandaids and—because she errs on the side of extreme drama—lots of screaming about us not having consent to touch her legs (LOL) to clean the injuries. Between the screaming and the crying and the blood and the residual scent of sunscreen, chlorine, bug spray, and the tacos we were cooking, it was maximally maximal. It felt like summer. 

On another afternoon she was bitten by a horse fly. Jacob got multiple stings to the upper chest by a hornet or a wasp while on a bike ride, which continued to pulse with a fury for the next 36 hours. Julian got a splinter that required sterilizing a Very Sharp Blade to cut out. We got caught in a massive downpour during the Rosendale Summer Fair and ran to our car soaked to the bone. A mouse scampered into our oven after Jacob broiled some tomatillos and self-immolated into a toxic scent that’s lingered all week. Out an oven, we’ve been grilling all our dinners, which is honestly quite ok. The garlic falls off the vegetables, and the peaches stick to the grill, and again—like everywhere, there’s so much residue, smoke in our hair, juice all over our hands. 

completely soaked

I used to despair about summer because I found all this sensation so excessive. I didn’t like sweating when I needed to be somewhere presentable—namely, an office. It always felt like coming undone. I didn’t like having to wash bug spray and sunscreen off myself every day. I didn’t like the sweat under a bike helmet, or the sand in my bathing suit; it never felt like the discomfort was quite worth the effort. At some point without noticing, but probably because of having kids, I let go of trying to seem like I could keep it together.

Sweat liberally, eat heartily, cook messily, garden with fervor. Sometimes I think we do it because if we waver, the kids will notice. If I hesitate to jump into the icy cold swim hole, they will too. If I’m scared of coming across caterpillars in the garden, they too, will be trepidatious echoes. Last weekend, I, a wimp at all amusement park rides, went on the log flume at Coney Island. I was terrified, but mom is fun too, said my internal dialogue.

The kids want to prune the branches and pull weeds around our house even though their inefficiency at it is comical. “Mom, you’re so good at knowing which ones are weeds,” says Ada, in her best compliment voice, until we come across one with prickers that scrapes her hands, and I get chastised for also not anticipating this. Julian gets out the hose and starts spraying it directly up in the air and waits for the water to come back down on his head before doing it again. They get popsicles out of the freezer and sit on the deck. Wet. Sticky. Drippy. Hot. Stinky. Maybe they’ll always submit to the sensation of summer. Maybe they’ll love it. Maybe they’ll never despair, because they saw its hearty embrace. 

Recommendations:

To eat, Ulster County edition:

• The BLT at Rosie General in Kingston is summer perfection.

• The Aperol Spritz is my drink for hot times, and we got this Amermalade Apertivo at Kingston Wine the other day as an aperol sub, and it hits just right.

• The tofu sisig and shaved cantaloupe juice (with condensed milk) at Harana Market, a Filipino restaurant and market in Accord. The perfect meal.

• The stracciatella and grilled bread at Lola Pizza, also the artichokes and the grilled carrots.

Tennis edition:

• String Theory, a collection of essays on tennis by David Foster Wallace, which is a delight to read if you’re at all into the sport. (Amazon link b/c not available on Bookshop)

• “I’m Good, I Promise": The Loneliness of the Low-Ranking Tennis Player, an essay by Conor Niland for The Guardian. Also goes into player ranking, and what happens to everyone who isn’t a superstar. (via my friend Emily G)

• If you’re at all interested in going to the US Open but generally appalled at the ticket prices, you can get a free Fan Access Pass for the week before and there are all kinds of events going on, including a Kids’ Day.

To read:

• I really enjoyed Taffy Brodesser -Akner’s new novel, Long Island Compromise. Deep family dysfunction, skewer-the-rich enery, with a strong strain of anxiety and chronic ennui.

• Liars, the new novel by Sarah Manguso is—as I wrote on IG—just searing. If you’ve been in any intimate partnership, and ever felt your love entangled with being unseen, gaslit, manipulated, or envied, Manguso navigates all these intricaties. She’s a master of sentence craft and there are just so many perfect lines in this book.

To listen:

• Multiple interviews with Sarah Manguso, including this one at Los Angeles Review of Books, and this one on Poured Over.

• Claire Zulkey (of the Evil Witches newsletter) talking with the hosts of The Mother of it All on summer/parenting and also this will assuage your guilt if your kids also eat ice cream daily.

• The final episode of Longform, in conversation with John Jeremiah Sullivan, whose essays, at a time, were the pinnacle of magazine writing. His deep southern drawl and thoughtful responses are irresistible.

Stuff for the kiddos:

• Greeking Out, the Nat Geo podcast. We listen to about an episode a day to/from the bus to camp. They are obsessed and I will admit I am learning so much. This podcast does a masterful job with the storytelling and forging connections between the various gods, goddesses, heroes, and such.

• Kamala running for president. Mochi Kids has cute tees for pre-order.

• These pouches from Storq have been life-savers for camp. We use them for a change of clothes, and for stashing wet swimsuits and dirty clothes without mucking up their entire packpacks.

No watching recs, because I am only watching the Olympics. I’m an Olympics obsessive. There’s no sport too minor!

Recs, please: favorite summer cocktails / mocktails? And books you’ve loved so far this summer.