We are hurtling through May toward the summer. Brace yourself, parents.
There was a time when the word conjured images of relaxed and glorious freedom: fireflies and s’mores; sleeping in and riding bikes; going to bed happy, exhausted and smelling of sunscreen, hair still crunchy from the pool. And yet, it’s been years since that’s what summer meant to me.
Until only recently, I wondered what I was doing wrong. More than a decade of Junes have felt stressful, expensive and sort of sticky. Why, I asked myself, do these months seem to stretch so interminably; do I feel like my gas tank, both literal and metaphorical, runs on fumes; do I end each dog days like a puddle of melted ice cream, all but dissolved under the heat and pressure of – oh wait, I know why!
I have children: sweet, good-natured, endlessly energetic boys who fill me with joy, even while requiring transportation to “full-day” camps and daycares that end at 3 p.m. It hit like an epiphany last summer, in a hot car in construction traffic on our way home after two pick-ups and an ill-timed gas station stop: To be a parent in the summer means shuttling around your favorite little people. And these people have been turned into beasts by heat, too much structured fun and mild dehydration.
And the inevitable conclusion would be emotional collapse on all fronts. Unless something could be done.
My husband, McKay, brilliant and handsome man that he is, suggested the perfect “Hail Mary” when we (finally) reached home. It was one that solved for cranky children and tired parents, for the heat of the day and any lingering energy. And it shone like a bright blue, shimmering mirage made real only two blocks away: Golden hour at the pool.
As you know, I’m sure, the pool is the summertime panacea, but have you experienced the wonder of ending your day there? It’s like magic. The pool empties out and quiets to a carefree hum, the sunset glows on the surface of the water like gold, and the pool manager replaces the top 40 playlist with millennial favorites from the likes of Ace of Base and Deep Blue Something.
When you stand on the tenuous cusp of early evening, I discourage you from slowing down for any of the midday necessities. Sunscreen, for example: the damage has already been done for the day. Don’t waste time by feeding the kids at home: have a cheap and questionably nutritious meal at the snack bar or pack your dinner into Tupperware and tote it along with you. Some crafty parents even sneak in half a glass of wine in their water bottles (not that I know such people). It is vital for shalom bayit, peace in the home, and wellbeing of all to get to the pool before anyone else can have a meltdown, and that includes you.
Because if you get to the pool with all haste after 5:30 p.m., you can be like us: a family transformed.
McKay and I wade in the shallows with toddler Rafy while 10-year-old Darby waves to us from the high-dive. We have a chance to talk and muse about the last time we heard the Spoon song that’s playing (senior year in college). We might plan a little something by way of pick-ups and drop-offs for the next day. But probably not.
Over the course of a pool evening, I become that girl again. I am the one who knows that summer is a time for laziness, for bending my own rules and for climbing into bed still smelling like chlorine.
We are often the last ones to be ushered out the gates, and I know that the same thing will happen tomorrow. The kids will have a wonderful time at their camps and still be cranky and tired, and it’ll again take twice as long as it should to get home because of construction, and we will again be on the verge of familial collapse. But I’ll have a plan.
And I can’t worry. Because for now, we’re walking home barefoot and wrapped in towels, and the fireflies are coming out.