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Vacation Aspirations, Swimming Pool Schemes, and the Last Gifts of Summer
We got married! At the end of the day, at the end of the summer, on the edge of a mountainside, everything held still at the precipitous edge of fall. To begin the ceremony, my witch, Amanda Yates Garcia, called forth the four elements from the four corners of the earth, and when she called to the spirits of the air in the east, a wind blew in, right on cue. Later Amanda texted to say that the east is the place of new beginnings, where the sun rises.
This year we made the mistake of scheduling all our day camps and road trips for the first few weeks of summer break, and so by the time August came around, there was nothing left to look forward to. At the beginning of summer break I had asked each kid to set one or two goals for their vacation: Beatrice wanted to write a long-form graphic novel and learn to use the loom she got for Christmas; Arthur wanted to design and sew a jacket, and to learn to do card tricks; William wanted to learn to swim and to read. It all started very idyllically. Beatrice took up horseback riding; William joined a club of neighborhood children who waged regular water gun battles in the park. We took the kids to see Twelfth Night in Griffith Park, Arthur proclaimed it “exquisite,” he came home with a new love of Shakespeare and began memorizing monologues. We went to the public pool almost…
