Summer Adventures by Lucy Nolan
Today’s guest blogger is Lucy Nolan, author of Mother Osprey: Nursery Rhymes for Buoys & Gulls. Lucy will participate in the “Every Child a Reader” panel at the SIBA Tradeshow on Friday afternoon.
Mother Osprey
When I was young, summer was always a time for adventure. My adventures were usually small, mind you, but they were adventures all the same. Catching minnows. Hunting for sharks’ teeth. Jumping off the high dive.
Summers back then flowed like the tide. As soon as school let out, we rushed to Pawleys Island for a week. The summer stretched all the way to the horizon, full of shimmering possibilities. Then, when August came, we’d wander the beach one last time, letting the sand, and the summer, slip through our fingers.
When I was three, I went on a really big adventure — all the way to Miami. (Although, looking back at that two-day car ride with no air-conditioning and two preschoolers, I realize that it was my parents who were the adventurers, not I.) My memories are filled with images of sea cows, parrots on bicycles, and Key West. The images are hazy, but I have cherished them all these years.
So when my daughter turned four, we headed to Miami to make some new memories. We avoided the unbearable heat I remember as a child, and spent a pleasant day in late May at the Seaquarium. My daughter got splashed by a killer whale. She stood still, barely breathing, as a massive sea lion touched her. And she watched in total awe as Flipper and his friends performed their amazing stunts. That night I watched her sleep soundly, her arms wrapped around her new stuffed dolphin.
That was last year — her last summer undefined by school.
This year, with kindergarten looming, I felt a sense of urgency in planning our vacation. This was our last chance to have a summer adventure on our own terms. What other memories did I want my daughter to have? We ended up spending four days on Amelia Island at the Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival. We watched fireworks and played carnival games. We ate hamburgers with my 101-year-old aunt. We talked to pirates and made friends with a bed-and-breakfast cat.
This was my fourth Shrimp Festival. It was my daughter’s first — and her last. There can be no more summer vacations in May. Now kindergarten has started, and our lives have taken on a new rhythm — a rhythm set by the school district.
My daughter is only three weeks into the school year, but she has already grown up so much. She rides a bus. She carries her own tray in the cafeteria. She sells wrapping paper.
And she comes home from school every day and excitedly points out words in books. Words like “the” and “is.” Suddenly, the alphabet that she has recited for years has taken on new meaning. Before, she just saw letters on a page. Now, she sees those same letters forming real words. The world is opening up to her. And we are only just past Labor Day.
I think maybe I was wrong. Perhaps the real adventures in life begin when summer ends.
