As many of you know, my mother works in a middle school.
School is out for the summer today, and I already know one of the first things she'll say to me as she breezes through the door, with her hair a cute, frazzled mess, and a collection of bins and school supplies collected during the year in tow.
"What am I going to do all summer?"
It's a question I've come to expect. A question that tells me summer is officially here. After all, she's been asking the same question, in the same way, with the same look of bewilderment on her face, for some 15 years now. If she didn't ask it, then I'd start to worry.
The same conversation would go on for a few days. She'd ask the question as she'd putter around the house, trying to organize those bins or as she watered her tomato plants. I'd reassure her that she needs to rest and will find plenty of lovely things to do.
And then the day would come when we'd naturally find our summer groove, or our summer theme, as I like to call it.
We've had some 15 theme summers to date, and each year, we say, "Well, we'd better enjoy this summer because it could be our last one together ..." Together meaning the last one before my sister or I move and it's no longer just the three of us enjoying those lazy, hazy days of tranquility.
And even though we say it every single year, it has yet to come true. I'm sort of glad, actually. Had life taken that turn, we wouldn't have been able to indulge in some of my favorite memories.
There was the summer of walking to 7-Eleven and getting Slurpees when I was about 12. There was the summer of swimming - sometimes twice a day - when I was 14. There was the summer of watching every Al Pacino movie ever made when I was 16. There was the summer of Monday picnics at a new forest preserve every week. That seemed to be a recurring them during my teenage years, as did the theme of walking. We walked everywhere. Around the lagoon. Around town. Around the campus of Northern Illinois University after we'd spent time visiting with my father.
And last year was the summer of "House," where I finally got my mother hooked on the Fox Network medical drama TV hit. We watched four seasons in two and a half months. It was like a terrific television marathon.
And you know the greatest part? Not once did my mother utter "What am I going to do for the whole summer?" for the, well, whole summer.
Dare I say that these themes were some sort of magical potion? They gave each summer a bit of structure. But it wasn't the sort of structure that left you bone-tired by the end of the day like the structure of a regular 9-to-5 job. It was fun structure. It was structure that helped us bond even more - if that's even possible by now.
So tell me, what's your theme going to be this summer?
