The last week of camp
On Mondays someone always asks, amiably, "how was your weekend" and how to answer the question always puzzles me a bit. The very nature of the question puzzles me.
The weekends, you know, they're a blur of sameness. They're good but exhausting, driving to playdates and driving to birthday parties, art projects, pizza. Movie nights and bathing suits and laundry. The weekend was good, viewed inside the bubble of family. But outside, what's there to tell? It doesn't translate into story.
Some months I measure time by toothpaste. The lovely husband buys a 3-ounce air-travel-approved tube before the start of any trip of any duration. He leaves the mostly-empty tube on the sink once it holds too little paste to sustain his next trip. I'm forever holding a contest with myself to clear the sink of teeny toothpastes. I've never yet won.
I've wanted to tell you about E's bracelets (above). They're summer-chic, merit badges awarded by her camp that she passed the deep-water test and the go-down-the-spinny-slide-into-the-10ft-part-of-the-pool test. Some days melt into each other such that it's hard to find the plot points and some plastic links demand the justice of an homage to former roadblocks, the anxiety of swim, the boulder Anxiety itself.
That girl is growing, and the other one, and the boy who is no longer the smallest in the family by weight, speaking of monoliths. Today began the last week of camp. There will be a new toothpaste bought this week, and new cheers learned, and some face paint and hoarse throats, babies that smell like sunscreen and chlorine, clamoring for their daddy and for new friends about to become camp-has-ended separated friends, who don't like to be called babies, not at all.
The weekends, you know, they're a blur of sameness. They're good but exhausting, driving to playdates and driving to birthday parties, art projects, pizza. Movie nights and bathing suits and laundry. The weekend was good, viewed inside the bubble of family. But outside, what's there to tell? It doesn't translate into story.
Some months I measure time by toothpaste. The lovely husband buys a 3-ounce air-travel-approved tube before the start of any trip of any duration. He leaves the mostly-empty tube on the sink once it holds too little paste to sustain his next trip. I'm forever holding a contest with myself to clear the sink of teeny toothpastes. I've never yet won.
I've wanted to tell you about E's bracelets (above). They're summer-chic, merit badges awarded by her camp that she passed the deep-water test and the go-down-the-spinny-slide-into-the-10ft-part-of-the-pool test. Some days melt into each other such that it's hard to find the plot points and some plastic links demand the justice of an homage to former roadblocks, the anxiety of swim, the boulder Anxiety itself.
That girl is growing, and the other one, and the boy who is no longer the smallest in the family by weight, speaking of monoliths. Today began the last week of camp. There will be a new toothpaste bought this week, and new cheers learned, and some face paint and hoarse throats, babies that smell like sunscreen and chlorine, clamoring for their daddy and for new friends about to become camp-has-ended separated friends, who don't like to be called babies, not at all.
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