A Tale of Two Seasons

On the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, rather than going for a hike or a bike ride or an end-of-summer trip to the beach, we settled into what felt like a fall day. That morning was one of a string of chilly mornings, and the day’s damp start turned into a steady rain by lunch time. I was tempted to nudge the thermostat up and kick the furnace into action for the first time since May, but it just seemed too early.

Some gifts of the changing seasons.

Instead, we lit a fire in the fireplace, letting the woodpecker-drilled logs of an old apple tree burn into fresh ashes on the hearth floor, swept clean months ago. We dug through the shorts and t-shirts of summer to find jeans and fleece tops and socks. And during the big weekly grocery shop, I put a roasting chicken into the cart rather than something to throw on the grill. For good measure, we added locally-grown apples to bake into a pie.

It’s a bittersweet transition, this shift from full summer to early fall. I lament the new darkness of early mornings and the relative freedom of summer days spent mostly with the kids, but I am also relieved to get back to a more predictable routine of work, school, soccer practice – busy as it is.

Probably it was that return to the school year schedule that meant the kids were happy enough to spend a rainy day inside Sunday. Although the hauling out and tidying up of bedrooms was met with a chorus of complaints, the rest of the day they were content to cozy up inside, read, play a few games. Not a bike was ridden, nor a ball kicked all day. There was no tree-climbing or swimming hole jumping or even digging in the sandbox.

It was a stay-at-home day unlike any we’ve had since the flip-flops came out – and are unlikely to see again until that brief window in November between the end of soccer season and the start of ski season.

That nestling in against the cool and gray of outside, the crackle of the fire and cinnamon-tinted scent of apples baking felt welcomingly cozy. Still, we were happy when Monday dawned suddenly summery again. Back we went to doors flung open to warmth and brightness, to running around barefoot in the grass, to savoring the waning light of summer. That night I pushed aside the extra blanket I’d added during the recent chilly nights and slept again with windows wide open, on sheets dried on the line and smelling of sunshine.

Despite the rainy week that has ensued, that brief return to summer amid autumnal weather was a reminder that we haven’t fully turned the corner into fall yet. We are on the transitionary cusp, with one foot loitering in summer, even as the other one is stepping toward fall.

Yes, the mornings and evenings are darker now, the leaves are making their undeniable transition from summer green to autumn red-orange-gold, and the vegetables remaining in the garden are of the hardier variety – beets and carrots and kale – but chances are we’ll have a few more days that feel like summer. Days where we can toss aside the sweaters and pull out the t-shirts again, turn faces to the sun, maybe dip still-tanned toes into the cool river. Days that seem like a gift from the passing season, even as we cozy up to the next one.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the September 8, 2017 issue of the Littleton Record.

Wonderfully Exhausting

As soon as we turned our bikes from pavement onto the dirt single track, the littlest one let out a petulant, disbelieving groan. Somehow, in the excited discussion about going for a family bike ride, she hadn’t expected THIS: bumpy dirt, knobby roots to maneuver, long grass scratching against bare legs. Through the course of the ride – a mere two miles or so – we went from frustrated to joyful, back and forth, a dozen times.

“A mixture of wonderful experiences and parental exhaustion,” is how another mother – with two children younger than mine – recently described her family’s vacation. I feel as if that is a pretty accurate description of nearly every family outing. And, many days, of raising kids, no matter how old they are.

Growing is hard work. Learning new skills is hard work. Figuring out all the different ways the world operates is hard work. It is sometimes exhausting for the kids and the parents. It is sometimes exhilarating. Often, it is both of these – exhausting and exhilarating – nearly simultaneously.

Soon after the mini meltdown over the bike ride’s turn into the woods, we came to the biggest beaver dam I have ever seen. The kids hopped off their bikes and scampered over to check out the long, pointy-ended logs the beavers had felled. They examined how the sticks went together to create the dam and the section that had been breached, allowing water to flow through. We found a wildflower we didn’t know and snapped a picture of it to remind us to look it up later. (Bunchberry, it turns out.)

Riding over the roots was challenging. The complaining about said roots – and working to keep my parental composure as a meltdown ensued – was slightly exhausting. Discovering the beaver dam and checking it out was a pretty wonderful experience, and hopefully one my kids will remember – and want to relive on some future bike ride along the same trail.

I remember being on family hikes as a kid and feeling as if they would never end, whether we were on a short jaunt or a hut-to-hut overnight trek. But once we reached the top, the reward was great: a sense of personal accomplishment, and amazing views of the lowlands from which we had ascended, stretched out now far below.

What I remember most from those adventures are the stories we’ve told over and over: playing cribbage with other hikers, eating weird green pasta in one of the huts, the thick clouds atop Mt. Lafayette that obscured the rest of the world, the weight of my little brother’s backpack after a day of collecting rocks along the trail.

From those outings (which I imagine included a good dose of my own folks’ parental exhaustion) I gained a lasting appreciation of the outdoors and exploring it, the realization that hard work often pays big dividends, and the knowledge that the view from a mountaintop, from a height attained by your own will and power, offers a vastly different perspective than the one you had pre-climb.

After we left the beaver dam last weekend, the rest of the ride included an ascent along a bumpy trail and a bit more complaining. But also the downhill on the other side of the hill, time spent drawing with sticks in the sand along the edge of a brook, scampering across the water over logs, and stopping to look at swallowtail butterflies. On the final stretch of single track, my youngest child slammed on her brakes and reached down to pick up the large empty cocoon of a cecropia moth: a tangible treasure to take away from the ride.

We emerged from the woods about a mile from where we’d parked the car, and the mostly-downhill paved return was smooth sailing. There was one final challenge at the end of the ride: a super-steep climb to reach the car. My older daughter was in the lead and pedaled her way to the top, then came back to cheer the others on. All three made it, pedal strokes gradually slowing with the exertion as they neared the top, arriving tired but happy.

I hope they remember – as I do – the happy more than the tired, that they take from these adventures more of the wonderful than the exhausting. I hope these experiences provide my children the awareness that often at the far side of a challenge is a big view, a thrilling rush of adrenaline, lessons learned, and memories to hold through many more adventures. 

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her Blog: Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the June 12, 2015 edition of the Littleton Record.