The business of writing and publishing has set me back and I struggle with where I have landed, somewhere far-far-away, or so it feels, but I have a finished novel I love, a new idea ready to run where it runs, and I have my cautious optimism. Some days, it feels, what is there to say about this writing life? Except that it goes and goes and has its carousel-way with me. Maybe that's why I've been so quiet here.
I've been walking through this hot and rainy summer, the air hanging low and wet. I take Little O to various playgrounds. I hide in the shade, against the curl of the red slide. O's better now about getting up and down the stairs. He holds on, his toes hanging over each step and, one at a time, he lets one foot meet the next. He totters, like a penguin, down to where he came from and back.
I find myself in a Brooklyn summer as if for the first time, experiencing it with O. The kind of summer when children's laughter and wet braids slash through the spray of fire hydrants. Kids dangle from their parent's wrists and popsicles drip in rainbow lines to their elbows. O walks round and round our block with his push toy. He wrestles with the gates of the community garden, stomps in mud pits and sprinkler puddles, dipping watering cans and pails in the muck. We wait with braceleted wrists at the city Pop-up pool and he blows bubbles in the water. I consider, over online shopping carts, which swimmies might be best for a road trip lake vacation (puddle jumpers, anyone?).
Visiting my parents, I remember, as the little kids in the house next door send their bare tummies along their slip and slide, how summer was wet and restless and racing, with legs and arms pumping. I dunked my head in water, clutched at the grass in handstands, ran after the ice cream truck.
I am thrilled to discover that Brooklyn summers are similar. We may trade grass for concrete, but all the wet spray and breathless laughter and running toward the steel drum bell of the ice cream truck remain the same. I am reminded that summer, when done right, is barefoot and sticky and slick with sun cream, no matter where it takes place.
