Surrendering to Summer

Before Summer even officially began this year, Lyv and I had sunburn after sunburn. I'd slather sunscreen on both of us, walk out under cloudy skies, and both of us came home pink. I'd slather sunscreen on us again, walk down to the corner bodega, and again, come home sunburnt. Every time I went outside, I got bit by ten mosquitoes. It was barely June, and I decided I was over Summer. I have spent my life trying to enjoy it, trying to pretend that I'm not completely fair skinned, that I could perhaps not get burnt if I applied enough sunscreen or spent just ten minutes every day out side, so my skin could develop a degree of sun tolerance. But the truth is, in Summer, I get sunburnt, and if I don't, I get a reaction from the sunscreen I am wearing to prevent the sunburn.

This year, I decided I was old enough and comfortable enough with myself that I no longer felt I had to pretend to like Summer. I have spent enough of my life researching, sampling, applying and reacting to sunscreen and mosquito repellent. I thought I had made my peace before, when I switched completely from inefficient nasty chemical sunscreens to mineral sunscreens like zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, but this year I could no longer ignore that those too, especially my beloved Badger sunscreen that saw me through my stay at the equator, made me want to claw my face off. 

This year, rather than pretend that I love the heat as much as everyone else, I didn't. I freely now admit that I hate it. I hate the heat, and hate how depleted I feel in a heat wave and when I spend all day constantly sweating. I hate sweat running down my face or in my eyes. I also hate taking off my skirt or shorts at the end of the day to find a soaked waistband. Disgusting. 

In my rebellion against Summer, I bought a variety of big rimmed hats and light weight long sleeved shirts for me and my daughter.  I put minerals in my water, carry coconut water for the kids when it's heat advisory weather, and made some degree of peace with that from now on, I'll be that woman with a big hat, carrying a handkerchief to wipe my face like an English old lady, constantly popping a salt tablet while drinking yet more water. My friend's daughter gave me her Chinatown parasol (they're from Ecuador, so they don't get sun burnt walking to the bodega), which I find completes the look of someone trying to live their life, visit the parks they love, while simultaneously hide from the sun. It's ridiculous, but it beats hiding out in a cave for three months of the year.

Then I went on with my summer.

The kids and I went off to Central Park like we always do. We hit the Farmer's Market where we found fresh berries for jam making. First strawberries and rhubarb came into season for crisps and pies, then the blueberries. Now the corner bodega has organic raspberries for a dollar. My new Popsicle cookbook from People's Pops arrived and now I'm thinking of new Popsicle creations and if I can meet the nutritional needs of my family via a diet that consists completely of Popsicles (which I think I can, but I don't know that it's compatible with a Paleo diet...). I made my first batch of pickles. I have yet to make my annual summer pies of peach, strawberry-rhubarb, blueberry, only because we're so inundated with summer fruits, I have to use them quick - I don't have the time to whip together a pie crust. Instead, I've been making crisp after crisp after crisp. We have friends over or my sister with her fiance. Someone runs for vanilla ice cream or Coconut Bliss, and we silently devour warm fruit with ice cream melting into the juices.

On heat advisory days, when we're too hot to eat, we make a batch of guacamole. When it's too hot to do that, I slice an avocado, add salt, call it a salad, and have a beer - something I only drink when I'm too hot to think. The kids are listless on these days, and there's even been a couple of days, when I've asked Fyo what he wanted to do on that hot afternoon, and he said, "take a nap." I expected him to say he'd like to go up the street to the neighborhood pool, or for a bike ride or to the playground to play in the water. But he's right, when it's a hot summer day, the way to handle it is to sleep through it...

In the morning, before my family wakes up, and I get up early to write and enjoy my coffee in the quiet, one of my favorite things is to water the garden. None of the vegetables are producing anything. Not a single green tomato on a vine anywhere, but my herbs and flowers are thriving. Even if the family is up, if I ask Fyo if he wants to come out and help me water the garden, he does. In the backyard, as he waters, he tells me about the progress of his strawberry plant, and how there's a new little strawberry beginning to grow.

Fyo started swimming lessons, we got the bikes fixed and a new family cargo bike. Fyo got much more interested in his bike and riding it around the neighborhood when we go to the post office and hardware store. The Celebrate Brooklyn Concert Series started in Prospect Park, and a couple of weeks ago, the New York Philharmonic played in the parks of all five boroughs. We've headed off to Central Park for a picnic on the Great Lawn to hear the symphony just two nights after we rode our bikes up for a picnic in Prospect Park to hear the music. On the way home from our trip to hear the NY Phil in Central Park, Fyo and I discovered our favorite ice cream stand was still open at 10:30 at night. We were beat, but excited to find it open, so we each got cones. It felt indulgent to grant a 3 year old late night ice cream, but I thought, "Isn't this summer? And when he's older, will I remember all the nights he was in bed on time with proper dinners? Or the night we stayed up too late on a Summer evening having ice cream?"

Fyo taught me how to ride a scooter with instructions like, "Watch me brake, Mom." and "No, we don't go to the corner. We go to this house right here, and then turn around." It was hard not to  love that childhood tradition of riding out on the sidewalk in front of the house and hitting the invisible boundary (in this case, set by the kids and not the parents!) to turn around and head back.

After my first scooter lesson, we rode our bikes up to the neighborhood pool, and went for an evening swim. I realized while riding my bike (my bike that turns twenty years old this summer! I wish I had counted all the miles I've put on it!) that I actually love summer.

I may hate the heat and mosquitoes, but I love bike rides and evenings where we all play outside until dark. I love that we can spend all day eating fruit and avocados, but nothing of actual substance. I love the days that are so hot, that even as an adult, it becomes perfectly acceptable to lay down in the fountain at the American Museum of Natural History. I love camping trips with good friends, good food, and good conversations and being out of the city where the kids play so hard, they look like they survived the Dust Bowl and they're still sleeping it off two days later. I love watering my garden and walking through the Markets to see what's fresh this week. I love how we see friends at the playground that we haven't seen all winter long. I love sundresses and sunglasses. I love evenings with Sangria and vegetables my husband cooked on the grill. I love the fireflies that blink like magic and disappear. I love the summer reading (I don't know why reading during the summer is different, but it is - maybe it's the heat that stirs those childhood memories of free reading, and reading whatever I wanted all day after hours spent in the library.) I love the summer rains, and that last week, after the hottest day, we got absolutely soaked in the season's most amazing downpour (with Fyo screaming, "I'm getting wet! I see lightening! It's so wet!). I love that despite all the things I have going on, in the back of my mind, I'm already planning next year's garden and next year's camping trips.

Riding my bike home from the pool, I couldn't help but feel like a kid again, that there was something about being active in the late sun that made me feel ageless and eternal simply because in the heat, it will always be fun to ride bikes, go for a swim, have avocados for dinner, fall into bed late, but happy. I felt like Fyo, when he shouts, "Oh! This is fun! I love this! I think I love summer! Let's do this forever!"

Except at 4:30 the next morning, my bike was stolen from in front of our house. Oh...the heartache...

Arguing Against Resilience

My 3 ½ year old fell head first in the duck pond in Prospect Park this past spring. The incident left him scared and rather traumatized. So much so, that when his friend lays on the ground, and throws leaves into the duck pond in Central Park, he screams, cries, and then pulls her back from the edge by her dress while yelling, “It's not safe!”

My son and I spend a lot of time in the park and around a variety of duck ponds, so we talk a lot about water, being scared, learning to swim, how to stay safe, and how still, he doesn't want to go to the parts of the park where he saw a kid fall face first into a deep puddle, so that his entire head was submerged under water.

Oddly, in reference to the duck pond incident, I have been told randomly, that my son will get over it eventually, because kids are resilient. Not only are kids resilient, but people are, generally speaking.

I know what these people mean: that children go through difficult things and survive, even turn out well, despite an aversion to water.

Yet, it's the English teacher in me that just has to point out that it's not a correct use of the word “resilient.” I find it hard, in these conversations, not to quote Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride by saying, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

To be clear, the word resilient means the ability to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed. This definition suggests that kids simply endure whatever trauma or hardship, from falling in the duck pond to being bullied at school or by their parent, and simply spring back into shape, as if that event never occurred.

Granted, the alternate definition of resilient is that someone withstands or recovers quickly from difficult conditions. Still, this definition suggests that the difficult conditions do not leave lasting marks or at the very least, that kids (and people in general) can endure rather a lot, without much harm coming to them in the long run.

I just don't think this is true of kids, or of grownups either.

After my son's fall into the duck pond, he has not just bounced back as if he never fell head first into dark murky water. Even in the alternate definition, he is recovering from the fright of his fall, but quickly? He fell in three months ago. Is that quickly? I have a friend who lost her gorgeous off the grid house in the Colorado fires. She is recovering, but she is grieving, raging, crying, yelling, and grieving some more. Is that all part of withstanding?

The word resilience devalues the experiences that shape us and impact us. It asks that we experience life by acting as if things don't.

I think the better word is adapt. Instead of saying children are resilient, we could say, children adapt. Because they do. They develop coping mechanisms. They make decisions about the world and they make decisions about themselves. Some children who are abused are scared into behaving well, because they adapt with the notion of, “if I just stay quiet and out of the way...” while others adapt by becoming physical fighters. But spring back as if nothing ever happened? I don't know anyone who does that. Humans collect experiences the way a child collects shells at the beach; it doesn't serve anyone to act as if those experiences don't leave some imprint long after their moment has passed.

After my son's fall, he's adapted by staying away from the edge of the duck pond. He only goes in the ocean if he's holding my hand, and he won't let the waves go higher than his knees. This week he begins swimming lessons, an adaptation we're hoping lessens his fear of water. He will recover, and I do believe this whole process will contribute to who he becomes, but I don't expect him to bounce back as if it never happened. To do so would be a disservice to who he is and his experience.