Free Reign In the Summ'a

Barbara: There was a fun article in the Life section of the paper the other day (damned if I can find it to link), looking at the days of yore (ie the seventies and back) and the days of new, and comparing the differences in how children play. I know it’s a well-addressed theme—we got to play wherever and however we wanted and today’s kids are cloistered and over-protected—but still, I thought it would be fun to ask about your experiences and share our childhood memories … since it is summ'a, after all!!

Yeah, yeah, I am old enough to be from the generation of Free Play. When I think back to my childhood, I have vivid memories of hours and hours spent exploring the woods that abutted our suburban house. It was a large tract of land clearly slated for future development, but which languished in my time in wild, thorny, and verdant splendour. Hard dirt paths carved through the woods, ample clue that they were popular with more than just this curious 9-year-old child. But I don’t remember ever seeing anyone. I could take an entire artillery of flotsam with me—Barbie dolls, sand pails, plastic animals—and create new and amazing worlds in those woods. I could invent stories rife with travesty and betrayal and magic and deep abiding love. I could lie amid thigh-high grasses and just inhale the dry, hot, wildflower fragrance. I never worried about “strangers”; I cherished the bright rays of the sun; I didn’t imagine the possibility of fierce animals or broken bones or helplessness. I know I must have played in these woods with my friends, but strangely, that’s not what I remember. The memories that linger of this carefree time are the ones of me alone, responsible to no one, utterly unrestrained.

And then times changed and I grew up and so did the world and our fears and our woes. And I had my own children and had to make a choice (or choiceS: choice after choice after choice) on how we would raise them. Sadly, I couldn’t risk allowing them to utter abandon. On the one hand, I don’t agree with the mother in the article who laments, “The world is a different place!” It is in many ways, but not, I don’t think, in the pure mathematical logic of more psychopaths—because that’s who we fear when we fear the “stranger”. I imagine that the odds are about the same (with the exception, maybe, of a slightly higher population affecting the pure amount of them). On the other hand, I completely relate to the father who says something like, “But I can’t risk my child being the one child.” So I never walked the street without holding a hand and I never let them out of my sight (and so never lost them). That said, I was always aware of a kind of childhood injustice when it came to their freedom—the freedom necessary, in my opinion, to develop their imaginations and curiosity and problem-solving skills.

I asked the girls about how it was to grow up the way they did … and their answers surprised me. They have their own sweet memories of childhood abandon. For them, it was sweet summer days spent in the backyard creating worlds in their sandbox or in our garden. It was cold winter hours in the “mess” of a basement where we allowed their toys to have their own sort of wild free reign. They say they have no dearth of experience when it comes to freedom and independence. Even if I only remember hovering at the kitchen window making sure they were safe outside or tracking their basement safety from upstairs. Maybe a kid’s always gonna do what a kid’s gotta do!

What is your experience of childhood play—is it carefree abandon or cloistered restriction?

Deb: Mine was a combination of both, I would say. My parents certainly wanted to know where I was, but we were allowed to run free in the fields, and up at the cottage we spent endless hours by the creek, in the forest, and in the farmer’s field. We had a huge tree on the other side of the creek that we would climb every day as part of our ongoing game of Robin Hood. We would sneak into the abandoned (haunted, to our young imaginations) cottage that we were told not to enter but did anyway. Walks to “Big Rock” for the big climb and picking wild raspberries were all part of the daily fun. Our parents were secure in the knowledge that we would come home for meals, which we always did.

I will have to ask the boy if he had any such adventures that I did not know about. Sadly I was not as cool a parent when I became a Mom. I was, I am ashamed to admit, too worried about his safety to let go too too much. But I think the boy would tell tales of tobogganing on the big hill, building snow forts, and climbing the next-door neighbour’s tree. The toughest and best thing I ever did was letting go enough for him to have camp experiences. After one session, I settled into letting go and trusting that he was going to be okay. Also, having a pool has adventure built in and I think he remembers it that way. I hope the fact that I walked him to school till he was shaving does not colour his memories of childhood abandon! :-)

Phil sent me this and I had to include it. Credits, anyone???

I’ve Won The Battle With Cellulite

Deb: Got your attention, didn’t I?

Yes, it is true what you heard, I have won that battle. And I didn’t win it with creams, machines, or plastic surgery. I have been looking for five years to find a way to conquer this bodily bubble wrap. It’s too bad it’s not like the shipping bubble wrap, although if it were I would never leave the house, all day pop pop popping.

So it’s with a teensy bit of smug satisfaction that I share my epiphany with you.

It all started in Italy four summers ago. It was a steamy day and husband, boy, and I sat at an outdoor cafe. My lovely summer blouse measured specifically partway down my arms and my shorts, partway down my legs, conspiring with me to keep bubbles at bay.

Shifting weight from time to time to prevent the sun from casting shadows on any offending area, I suddenly looked up. Coming towards us was a sexy early 50’s Italian woman dressed in an outfit that can only be described as so beautiful, so chic, so perfect, that she doesn’t care if you like it or not. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t. There she was, just owning the street with each cobblestone click. And then I saw it. Her arms were covered in cellulite. She was bubbling over.

I said to my husband, “Why do I think my cellulite looks so horrific and yet she has it and still looks so hot?”  My husband said that I was an idiot, which is his sweet and sarcastic way of saying that he loves the way I look, bless him. So I vowed then and there that I would never ever ever cover myself up! That I too would own it.

And four years from that moment ... I was transformed.

You see, I woooooooooouuuuuuuuuullllllllllllddddddddd have done it sooner and I tried. I mean, philosophically I was behind it one hundred. But as a public practice I couldn’t make a full commitment. And every time I would get ready to bare arms, I would catch a glimpse in my full length mirror as the sun was softly setting ... aaaaaaaaaaaaand-no.

And yet this summer, I am just feeling so summery and so free, I brazenly donned a bathing suit in front of friends who had never seen my dimpled goodness lo these past years. And as it turns out, no one sneered, shunned or scorned, even though in certain light my upper left thigh looks like Shirley Temple eating mashed potatoes. I’m sure they noticed and yet they did not shun, not even a little. Mind you, given the number of middle-aged friends we have, it is remotely possible they actually didn’t see it.

Whatever the case, this has been an almost five-year battle for me, one I was too vain to be sensible about. And now I’m outed and free to play in the sun with the other kids.

I mean let’s face it, ten years from now with aging’s new charms and surprises and looking back on this 57-year-old Deb, I will be awestruck by my crazy-ass hotness.

So I figure I might as well just think it now. Too humid for insecurity. 

PS And if you think you’re getting a picture with this one, think again. I’m not insane. But in the meantime, enjoy this lovely picture of a cloud.

Barbara: Hey, my Yoda Master and my birthday near-twin, I’m having a similar sort of summer as you! Haven’t worn shorts and even skirts the last few summers (not just cellulite woes, but those new, shocking eruptions of extra meat where once was lean). But this hot and hazy summer has been all strapless this and swishy that. I feel AWESOME! Sidelong comments be damned. And, thanks to our lovely readers here and their encouragement, I’m getting so much better about not giving a shit about that shit anyway.

On another note, maybe when it comes to the body-confidence arena our hot-climate sisters have it over us cold-livin’ gals because too much coverage in warm weather is uncomfortable at best and suffocating at worst. Let’s face it, when you’re hot, you’re hooooot. 

Summ’a Girl

(to listen to while readin': sexiest summ'a song eeeeeeva!)

Deb: I have four distinct personalities and I wear them in equal parts every year. Right now, I am a summ’a. I’m just all summ’a, with my summ’a clothes and my summ’a tan and my summ’a attitude and my summery sum sum summ’a ways.

I am spending time in the sum sum summery sun and gettin’ all back yard basky and feelin’ like I can’t do anything but be a summ’a girl!

Yeaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh summa girl. You know the one I mean. The girl that’s sittin’ in the summ’a sun with sum summa readin’ and not carin’ if the counters are wiped o’ the dishes are dun.

GONE FISHIN’

Too hot, you say? Not for summ’a girl. She just slides into the pool. Or rather slides onto a plastic chair that floats on the pool. Cause she doesn’t have to actually swim. Can’t make her. She’s summ’a girl.

Streets are steamin’ and summ’a girl’s just takin’ it slow. She’s eatin’ summer salads, bbq chicken and corn, local berries and tall cool drinks.

The summa brings out the sexy in the summ’a girl. She’s walkin’ barefoot and smellin’ the crayon coloured flowers. 

Summ’a girl is 17 when she looks in the mirror. On her next birthday that is!

She paints her toenails with summery colours with names like “Sandy bitch” and “Sunny bunny” and “Shorts Story”. Summer, doncha know. Gotst to do it. She’s summerlicious.

Mornin’ tea on the deck?  OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH summa girl, where ya been all my life?

But summ’a girl can’t answer any questions right now cause she’s too busy just doin’ some summ’a sittin’. Sometimes summ’a girl falls asleep in her “Gravity” lawn chair. Then she wakes up and just gets real busy sittin’.

She tried on Tuesday to think a complex thought. She couldn’t ... Summ’a!

So, come on, join in the summ’a fun! But like, don’t talk to summer girl! She’s “outta the office!”

Have your own summa fun and summa girl will talk to you ... in the fall.

Barbara: Deb, that is so summa-licious I want to play along, like tag and Manhunt on a hot summa day/night, but summa brain has me all, I don’t give an f about bein’ all cool and wit it like Deb. I’m just gonna rock my rum and coke on the deck while P smokes his stogie and Dad and Sis pull out the deck o cards and I’ma gonna chiiiiiiilllllllll. S’at what you mean, girlfriend? 

Summer Lovin'

Deb: The tide, or rather the temp is turning. We have had a long hot summer here in Toronto, fraught with high temperatures and higher humid index. It has been a sexy sweaty summer, accompanied by heavy thunderstorms and buckets of rain. I can’t remember the last time a summer this hot was reflected by burgeoning plants and green green grass. The rain has come almost exactly when we have needed it, craved it, and it has come hard and mostly at night.

But suddenly, there is a slight nip in the air, an amuse-bouche of autumn’s considerable gifts. We are still getting mostly warm weather but the fade is on. The markets are full of autumnal mums and my fuchsia plants are starting to thin out just a tad. Shorts and tanks are still the order of the day, but I will grab a light jacket and throw it in the car just before rushing out the door. When I shower and leave the house, I stay showered, not like July where we resided in a traveling steam room. But I will wallow in perfect days like today––26 degrees and a slight breeze––and cling to them until the summer wanes.

I am usually ready by this point to say goodbye to summer, but the summer of 2010 has done its job, bless its steamy little heart. There will be no lamenting a missing summer this year. It showed up and got the job done. I am not one bit embarrassed for it. Lived up to its resumé, this summer did.

So as a reward of sorts, I shall not look ahead to the fall, my favourite season. I will stay right with summer for its final summery weeks and wave its sunny flag right to the last bumblebee. Thank you, summer of 2010! I will remember you fondly when in the coming months my nose hairs freeze.

Barbara: Oh, yes, this has been a glorious summer for those of us living in Ontario. Not sure how it’s been for the rest of you, but here it’s been just as Deb says, with steamy heat and lots of well-timed sun. Cocktail hour has never been so fair and sweet.

That said, every important weather day for me this summer has not come through. BabyFest? Steaming hot before and after, winter cold and stormy for those precious three days. Taking my niece to the local fair (otherwise known as The Ex)? Yup, hot and sunny the day before and after, unseasonably cold and rainy on that one day and night (it’s hard enough for me to face an amusement park ride as it is, never mind putting on a brave face for my sweet niece and shivering from frostbite as we rollercoastered and tilta-whirled). Told you I loved to complain about the weather.

And on that note––the biggest shiver induced by Deb’s lovely post has to be from her ode to fall. Um, not so much for me. I do love the colours and I can even bear the occasional cooler day. I do like the symbolism of the “fresh start”—and, funnily, this seems to manifest often in my life. Lots of fresh starts in fall. But knowing winter is coming after the season, with its cold and dark and forced indoor life, I can’t help but want to hang onto my summer porch, kicking and screaming and tantruming until winter concedes and pats my head and goes away. If only that would work *sigh*…

Deb: Well, you already know my thing on this as I have said in many a blog. I don’t let the weather define my life or the events therein negatively. I count my blessings that I do not live in a part of the world that weather can ruin your home or your life in a second. So for me, I love all weather and look for the beauty in each day. Corny maybe, but it is so true for me. I am a weather ho, a season’s slut, if you will.

I am so sorry, Barb, that the summer was ultimately defined for you by a few events. We had some of those moments ourselves, but we took it in its stride and chalked it up as Mother Nature’s crap-shoot. I have never counted on weather to make or break my fun. I have always taken it as it comes, moving inside when needed, like a picnic that gets a sudden downfall and ends up with a game of snakes and ladders on the deck.

This side of you is so unBarb to me as you are such a positive person who finds beauty in everything. But as you have said, I guess it is just the Weather Witch in you that you strive to control.

We live in a country of seasons and it is my blessing that we do. Autumn weather is like heaven in my view. I long for the “Boo Radley” nights with the leaves crackling and whipping in the snug autumn wind. Oh, dear me, it is like breath to me. Magic. And winter? Never do I feel so alive as when the frosty morning slaps me in the face and says, “What the hell are you staying indoors for??? Come out and walk with me till your fingers feel tingly and your cheeks are cherry red! Then come inside and circle your hand around a steamy hot chocolate. Now, look out your window. I’m out here all frozen, keeping it real for the sleeping earth till I choose the time to put back the spring in your step.” Seasons! Are you kidding me? Who loves ya, baby???

Barbara: Um, did Deb say something? ‘Cause all I heard was, “Blah blah weather blah slut blah blah.”