what i learned on my daughter's summer vacation
by pauline d michel

If I had a summer vacation, which I didn’t, and was returning to school, which I’m not, and received the dreaded, classic assignment to write about what I did on my summer vacation, I would refer to the lessons I was taught by my children. It would go something like this.

Maude (my youngest) and I left early to pick up her older sister from camp for a break in the month-long summer program on the Chesapeake where she is a counselor. The first highlight of the morning for Maude is the sighting of a “smashed flat” raccoon on the roadside not five miles into our drive. The second is the vanilla steamer she orders along with my latte at our local café to get us on our way. I am delighted she is still so easy to please.

Hannah had been at camp for two weeks and was coming home for a “24.” This means I drive two hours to pick her up, she sleeps all the way home, wakes upon arrival to eat and goes back to sleep for another four hours while I do two-weeks worth of foul-smelling, moldy and damp, camp laundry.

This is followed by dinner at our favorite restaurant. A plus for me because I don’t have to cook. A minus for me because I have to get dressed halfway decent, put on a bra and shoes, with slight, but just enough to make me unsteady on my feet walking uphill, heels.

It is ninety-two degrees with high, tri-state humidity. I am not good in the heat. We get a table in the pub because with no reservations this is the only seating left and we are lucky to get it! It is hot in the pub. I anticipate the usual, loud dinner conversation with my children. This doesn’t happen and I am confused, then concerned. I pay forty plus dollars and a tip for two small salads, a skimpy crepe, a Shirley Temple, coke, and one gin and tonic when I really want two.

There is no talk on the short drive home and as we pull into the drive I hear “I don’t want to go back to camp. I want to stay home.” This camp, where Hannah is working, cost us $2 thousand. She is going back to camp.
Hannah’s date is waiting and she leaves one car for another. “Goodbye!” she chirps. I am waving as I yell, “Be home by midnight.” Off she goes for the night with the departing remark, “I can’t wait to be on my own!” “Me too,” goes through my mind. Maude and I grasp hands, she smiles up at me, and we head for the hammock to rock away the meal and the blues that have crept into our evening. We both miss her.

I remember the wash, leave Maude swinging in the hammock, and peeling off my linen shift, walk through the twilight heat to the porch door. Between loads I gather food to take her through the remaining two weeks because they do not feed her enough and the meals are “disgusting.”

The visit goes too quickly, morning comes, and we are taking Hannah back to camp. The girls are asleep in the back seat so I tune into the station of my choice and think of this as “alone time.” Two hours later I swing into the long, tree-lined, gravel drive and the sisters awake.

“I haven’t received a care package”, Hannah declares when her little sister pleads for a letter from her. I thought the 200 dollars I spent on snack food qualified as a care package of generous proportions and I state this with as blank an expression as I can muster and maintain.

Hannah promises to write while she hugs her sister. Our hug is a quiet one. Then, with lightening speed she releases me as she hears her name squealed from the doorway of her cabin. Friends, who grab her suitcases and bags of food while shouting “thank you Hannah’s mom”, surround her and they are gone.

It is sultry and quiet and a little sad as we leave the camp and head for home. I roll down the windows as Maude and I cruise through the Maryland farmland. We can see the fireflies better this way. Millions of them rise from the earth. This will be a childhood memory for my girls - hot summer nights on the Maryland shore with skies of fireflies. I add this image to my memories with them and am a bit envious of their camp days.

“Oh, Mommy, there’s the dead raccoon. We’re almost home!” Maude informs me.

I learned on my daughter’s summer vacation:

1. There is no such thing as a relaxing summer vacation while you are parenting.
2. Always have as many pillows as you do children in the car.
3. Start each trip – always – with a coffee beverage of your choice.
4. School will resume. You will miss the summer.
5. Watch your children carefully. They will be out of sight soon enough.
6. The end of the drive or visit is the time they will choose to speak their mind, divulge a worry, or let you in on their life. Listen up and go the long way.
7. Take note of the first emergence of fireflies and watch.
8. Sooner than I expected I would have all the “alone time” I long for. I had better get a life right quick. This is simultaneously frightening and thrilling.
Thank God I have a few summers of driving and camp, fireflies and crowded hammocks before the real “alone time” arrives. I plan to relish them.

 

Pauline D. Michel is the mother of three teenagers living in Avondale, PA. She is working on a novel about female merchant marines.