Holds Upon Happiness

Monday was the first day of summer. I know this because my daughter's alarm did not go off at 5:30 a.m. School ended the week before and now we have ten glorious weeks without homework, rigid schedules, and last minute panic about gym clothes that should have been washed but weren't. Summer doesn't start based on a calendar or the weather. Summer starts when school ends.

I'm relishing the summer because I know the days are numbered where I will have a kid with the summer off; a kid who wants plans and trips to the beach and who is happy to have me involved in these plans. Thankfully, my schedule changes a bit in the summer too so I have time to spend frivolously.

So, how did my daughter and I spend our first day of summer? Bathing suit shopping. Anyone who has or has ever been a 13-year-old girl knows what that was like. Yes, she was miserable. Yes, I was miserable. No, she still doesn't have a bathing suit. We will have to repeat the whole process tomorrow since she is going to her grandparent's house and wants to be able to swim. Pray for us both.

When I was a child summer break seemed endless. There were long, lazy days to be spent running through the sprinkler, visiting grandparents, and reading book after book. There was a much-anticipated week spent at the shore. There were bike rides and sleepovers with friends and hamburgers cooked over an open fire. There was an endless vista of days stretching before me with only the hazy outline of another school year far in the distance. Now I know that the summer is short and, as my children grow up, the summers only get shorter. Those ten weeks will be gone in the blink of an eye. But I want to grab at them for my daughter.

I want her to have time, endless time, to read a book, lie in the grass and stare at the sky, go to the beach and yes, even spend way too long playing a video game. I want her to have fun. I want to have fun too.

But first, there is a bathing suit to buy.

Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

It is Wednesday evening as I am writing this and this week feels like it has been five million years long. Five million years filled with niggling annoyances, small disappointments, and way too many trips to the grocery store. Also, I've been waking up at 3:00 in the morning with my brain absolutely convinced I need to worry about absolutely ridiculous things. Who needs sleep when you can revisit every awkward or unpleasant conversation you have ever had in your life?

I meant to write a nice, chatty post earlier this week but my laptop died (see previous paragraph about annoyances and disappointments) so I am only managing my usual Thursday poem post. My husband managed to temporarily resurrect my laptop but its days are numbered and I am writing this expecting it to die again at any moment.

Today's poem is by Judith Viorst. I have featured her before but this poem seemed like an appropriate choice. Happiness in little things seems like a good goal for the week.

Happiness
Is a clean bill of health from the doctor,
And the kids shouldn't move back home 
for 
more than a year,
And not being audited, overdrawn, in
Wilkes-Barre,
in a lawsuit or in traction.

Happiness 
Is falling asleep without Valium,
And having two breasts to put in my
brassiere,
And not (yet) needing to get my blood
pressure lowered,
my eyelids raised or a second opinion.

And on Saturday nights
When my husband and I have rented
Something with Fred Astaire for the VCR,
And we're sitting around in our robes
discussing,
The state of the world, back exercises,
our Keoghs,
And whether to fix the transmission or
buy a new car,
And we're eating a pint of rum-raisin ice
cream
on the grounds that 
Tomorrow we're starting a diet of fish,
fruit and grain,
And my dad's in Miami dating a very nice
widow,
And no one we love is in serious trouble
or pain,
And our bringing-up-baby days are far
behind us,
But our senior-citizen days have not
begun,
It's not what I called happiness
When I was twenty-one,
But it's turning out to be
What happiness is.

Happiness (Reconsidered)
Judith Viorst

Reese at Typings is sharing another poem this week.

Photo by Pisit Heng on Unsplash

Elinor Wylie was an American poet and novelist. She was known for what she herself called her "small, clean technique." Wylie grew up in a socially prominent family and was expected to be a debutante. She rebelled against this life and her subsequent marriages and affairs caused a scandal. She suffered from poor health, including high blood pressure that caused incapacitating migraines, and died young.

Poets make pets of pretty, docile words:
I love smooth words, like gold-enameled fish
Which circle slowly with a golden swish,
And tender ones, like downy-feathered birds:
Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds,
Come to my hand, and playful if I wish,
Or purring softly at a silver dish,
Blue Persian kittens, fed on cream and curds.
I love bright words, words up and singing early;
Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing;
Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees;
I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly,
Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees,
Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.

Pretty Words
Elinor Wylie

Reese at Typings is sharing a lovely poem this week.