When he comes to it

When I first started this blog — almost six years ago — my son With-a-Why was small enough to sit on my lap. Now when he stands next to me, he can look over the top of my head. He’s got the same long, lanky build that his father and brothers have. Like his older brothers, he wears his hair long, pulling it back with a bandana when he plays Ultimate.

In many ways, he’s always been very adult for his age. He started playing chess before kindergarten. He plays amazing classical piano; he’s a motivated and self-disciplined musician. He plays on a Snowstorm City League Ultimate team with college students and grown men. He’s always hung out with his older brothers’ friends.

Yet, still, With-a-Why is very much the baby of the family. He does fewer chores than any of my other kids – heck, he does fewer chores than half of our extra kids. He and my husband read comic books together at night. He’s still sweet and affectionate, even though he’s so much taller than me now. He’s still painfully shy with anyone outside the family, since he’s lived his whole life inside a safe bubble of extended family and extra kids and a piano teacher who is practically family. I have no doubt he will, like his siblings, outgrow the shyness someday, but he hasn't had to yet.

In September, he begins tenth grade. When I looked at him through a camera lens last weekend, I was shocked to see that he’s turned into a young man. Another child growing up, striding off into the world to figure out who he is going to be.

Shoal

And the seasons they go round and round

It’s been a hot summer. We don’t have air conditioning, and the temperature inside our house rose above 90 degrees many times. The humidity made it uncomfortable at times, but I have to admit, I’ve enjoyed a summer that felt like summer. I haven’t worn a pair of jeans in months. I’ve worn the same outfit every day, a thin t-shirt and a pair of worn-out denim shorts. I’ve gone swimming in lakes, ponds, rivers, and creeks. Summer heat has the effect of slowing time down, so that this summer has felt like the summers of my childhood.

But this weekend at camp, the weather suddenly changed. A cool wind came across the river. I find myself digging out the red fleece that’s been buried in my duffle bag all summer. My mother and I went out canoeing, and we noticed that the lily pads were dry and withered, many of them brown. The light had changed: darkness came earlier. Acorns were already beginning to fall from the oak trees. It’s as if someone turned a switch and said, “Let it be fall.”

Life is but a dream

That's my father, rowing into the dock at camp.

Transitions

Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter, Boy in Black, and First Extra have been moving into an apartment near campus, the bottom half of an old house that they are furnishing it in a style that might be best described as Early Curb Side. The three of them will be living just across the street from the Classy House, a rental that houses a bunch of students they know, most importantly, Blue-eyed Ultimate Player. Film Guy, Skater Boy, Pirate Boy, and Sailor Boy have already been over to inspect the place, which feels like an extension of our own living room, just ten miles away.

My daughter finished her master’s thesis this summer. (Somehow, she was able to work amidst the noise and confusion of our household. It probably helped that her mother was out of town so much.) She and Boy in Black began orientation for their PhD programs at Snowstorm University this week. Now that I’m home from my travels, I’ve been cleaning my office, writing a syllabus, and getting ready for the start of a new semester. I’ve been thinking about the approach of winter as well: I froze seven quarts of tomato sauce on Tuesday, and I’m waiting for a delivery of firewood. With-a-Why has been thinking about the fall: he actually pulled out his summer reading list and asked me to order the books, so there’s some chance he might even read them before school starts.

Shaggy Hair Boy’s back-to-school project? He had his wisdom teeth pulled out.

He chose to stay awake for the surgery: the dental surgeon just used novocaine. (He’s nineteen so it was his decision, not mine.) “It hurt a lot,” he reported afterwards, talking through wads of bloody gauze, and clutching the four teeth in his hand. His strategy was to stay up most of the night before the surgery, so that afterwards, he was so exhausted he would sleep. The strategy seems to have worked; he has done little but sleep for the last 24 hours.

We’re going up to camp this weekend to swim and play bocce and canoe and sail. But then, starting Monday, I’m back to work, and the summer is over.

New neighbor

The man across the street has decided to start raising alpacas.

Ick

She stood on my porch, the tattoos on her arms and legs visible on a hot summer day. “Hey, can you do me a favour?” she asked. “I can’t do it because I’m squeamish.”

Woman with Tattoos asks for favors pretty often, but usually they’re simple: she needs some cash or a ride to the store. But this favor was the strangest thing she’s asked me to do. Her cat had a bot fly larvae that needed to be removed.

I walked down to the brown trailer, figuring I’d give it a shot. Little Biker Boy, Ponytail, and Toddler were gathered around the cat when I arrived. “Here are the tweezers,” Woman with Tattoos said, handing them to me. “And here’s some peroxide.” Then she lit a cigarette and averted her eyes.

Little Biker Boy grabbed the cat and held her down. Underneath her jaw, I saw a bulge in her neck – it looked like an open wound, with two holes in it. I poured on the peroxide and poked at the cat’s throat hesitantly with the tweezers.

“Just yank it out,” Woman with Tattoos said from the other side of the room.

I couldn’t tell which part was the larvae, and which part was the cat’s throat. I didn’t want to yank the cat’s throat out. Just then, Little Biker Boy pointed. “Look, you can see it moving!”

He was right. Suffocating under the peroxide, something was moving, beneath the cat’s skin. Some kind of little creature living UNDER THE SKIN. Ugh. I stuck the tweezers into the little hole, clamped on, and pulled.

What came out looked like a slug – about an inch long, light in colour, and still moving. I dropped in on the table, and it kept wriggling. We all stared.

“You did it!” Woman with Tattoos said. “THANK YOU SO MUCH.”

"THAT IS SO GROSS!" screamed Ponytail.

When I left the trailer, the three little kids followed me out, all of them jumping up and down, screaming, “Hurray for jo(e)! She did it!”

Top o' the falls

I think the coolest thing about this waterfall was the green stripe – bright kelly green, as if it had been decorated for Saint Patrick’s Day. Supposedly, there’s a notch at the top of the falls, so that the deeper, fast-flowing water spills over, and that water looks green in comparison to the white water around it. If you look close at the photo, you can see people standing on the platform next to the falls, which should give you some idea how big the falls were. (See, I do take photos of people! If you're in the photo, feel free to post this as your facebook picture.) We walked down to stand at the top of the falls, and from there, I could see a rainbow.

Through the lens

In the most famous areas of the park, we saw photographers, often with tripods and camera bags full of lenses. I could see how the incredible landscape, with its churning geysers, meadows filled with bison, and rock cliffs with waterfalls would attract them.

Far more common, though, were tourists who kept taking photos not of the landscape but of themselves, a curious custom that I’ve never quite figured out. Because I’m the kind of person who stops and talks to anyone who passes me, strangers kept handing me their cameras and asking me to take photos as they smiled into the camera. I kept wanting to say, “Um, this is going to be a crappy photo. It’s noon, with harsh sunlight, there are shadows in your faces, and no one is going to even see the landscape by the time all five of you get into the shot.”

Mostly, I didn’t say anything. I would take the camera and obediently snap the shot. But I still haven’t figured out the reason why people on vacation hold up a camera (or a phone) and take a photo of themselves. I mean, the shots don't usually come out very well. And I can’t think that there is any danger that they are going to forget about the time they saw a geyser shoot water 150 feet into the air. Maybe the experience of the fantastic landscape is so incredible that it's the equivalent of pinching themselves to see if it's real. Or maybe it’s just some need for proof, to show the rest of the world, “See? I was here.”

Steps