I should be packing. I’ve spent almost the whole day trying to wrap up my work neatly, so I can go on vacation with a guilt-free conscience. I wasn’t able to tie as pretty a bow on everything as I would have liked, but I still have tomorrow morning, too.

I hope to be on the road by 10:00 a.m. We’ll see. I pulled out the packing list I made for our Bodega Bay vacation at Thanksgiving 2007; it was funny seeing some of the items we had to bring along, like baby food.

We  are all very excited to leave tomorrow! We are hoping to hook up with a few friends while we are near Capitola. I hope the house where we are staying will be cool. It should be!

Our plans for the week off include:

• beach play
• sand castles
• strolling through town
• eating out
• eating in
• Santa Cruz boardwalk
• redwoods
• meeting friends
• flying kites
• naps
• cocktails
• cuddles
• play
• reading
• knitting
• and some working

Sounds heavenly to me, except for that last little part. Wish us luck and safe travels!

Michaelmas is coming! Our school will be celebrating Michaelmas with a festival on Friday, September 25. Ian and I are both planning to be there (with my camera). It’s an especially exciting year because Lucas is in the second grade, and the second graders get to play an important part!

At this time of year, the turning seasons remind us to slow down, come home, warm up, and consider. We are happier to look inward in the autumn and winter than we were during the summer months when we were busy living and doing. When we turn our attention in, we can see our own inner dragons waiting for us there. They deserve our attention again because they’ve been patient—even faithful—waiting for us to remember them. Our dragons are our fears, insecurities, failings, worries, and procrastinations.

Many years ago I started observing that life kind of went to hell around this time of year, near the Autumnal Equinox—that major upheavals happened, as though it were time to till life’s soil and bring up our mucky muck to air it out. Jobs change. Partners change. Challenges abound. We are forced to notice them, acknowledge them, and then deal with the issues, like it or not. It’s a tough time of year, it seems, for many people because old patterns of being and behaving stop serving us the way they did before.

Change and upheaval are the order of the season, it has always seemed to me. Facing our dragons, peering into the dark and letting our heart’s light shine forth is what gets us through it. So the Waldorf/Steiner story of Saint Michael and Saint George and the dragon fits just fine with my own outlook. Sometimes, all we really need to help us understand is a good metaphor to sink our teeth into.

In honor of Lucas’s special roll in facing down the dragon this year, we are making a big deal. Second graders (7- and 8-year-olds) are emotionally coming to terms with the fact that dragons do exist in our world, within humanity, and even within themselves. Things are not always good and well-intentioned and true. We must choose right or wrong. We must notice the dragons around us and within us and we must face them down. We must take up our swords and slay the dragons or tame them so that we make make this world a better place.

My musings about dragons led me on a dragon hunt here at home. This is what I found to inspire me.

Saint George and the Dragon, by Margaret Hodges.

This is a used, paperback book I bought when Lucas was 4-years-old. I waited a long time for him to be ready for it. I gave it to him this weekend, knowing that he is being told the story at school and that he is ready for it now.

Here is a detail from the battle. Trina Schart Hyman’s illustrations are very vibrant and evocative.

Illustration from Eric Carl's book, Dragons Dragons & Other Creatures That Never Were.

Dragon illustration in the Oxford Treasury of Classic Poems. It graces the page with Brian Patten's poem, "A Small Dragon." Facing it is Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky."

Then I hit the armor and art books to find these beautiful paintings to share.

Rover Van der Weyden, Saint George and the Dragon, c 1432 (Flemish), found in a book called Arms & Armor of the Medieval Knight, by David Edge & John Miles Paddock.

Raphael's St. George and the Dragon, c 1506, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington. This was in our book, The Great Masters, by Giorgio Vasari.

Hope you enjoyed our dragon hunt as much as I did. May you meet your own dragons head-on this season, with bravery and compassion.

On the trails along the American River, a tiny lizard crossed our path and crawled right up Lucas’s body and under his shirt.

I am very disciplined about keeping my dreams in check. I don’t allow myself much time to wish or ponder much other than my reality (which is really good—I promise I count my blessings often). Anyway, in part this habit is an effort to live in the present with my family and “be here now,” as they say. Maybe it’s also a survival mechanism. There isn’t a lot of point in fantasizing about my dream job or what white sand beach I’d like to be lying on when these fripperies aren’t in my cards right now. Honestly, I don’t spend a lot of time doing it.

So I didn’t think about Burning Man much before the start of this week. I watched with casual interest as people I know and love packed up their dusty belongings and trundled off to Black Rock City to be their truest selves for a week. On Monday, opening day of the festival, I imagined driving in to Greeters  and falling into that first welcome home hug, the blowing winds, the light so bright you must wear sunglasses. On Tuesday I realized Asher’s present age (2 years and 7 months) is actually just a few months older than Lucas’s age when he first went to the playa in 2004—our ill-fated Burn, when we stayed only 51 hours.  I looked at a photo of feverish baby Lucas at Burning Man, trying to have fun despite his racking pneumonia.

On Wednesday, I lost my mind. I had a bad day. My son and I argued and my feelings got hurt. I spent a ton of time driving around lost, listening to Raffi. I had a cranky, overtired baby on my hands. I missed my limited opportunity to work on important projects. In short, I went a little nutso, succumbing to stress and worry and letting stuff get to me. I spent an evening gnashing my teeth in a dear friend’s living room, enumerating all the things that feel out of control and frightening in my world, and crying over all the things I wish I could be doing.

I guess I had to say this painful stuff out loud. Sometimes I need to be heard, no matter how ugly my words sound to my own ears. My patient friend listened, offered me her enduring love, and suggested perhaps it’s OK that I don’t do it all.

It wasn’t until today, Thursday, that my friend and I both realized that I unwittingly followed my own tradition of completely freaking out on Wednesday of Burning Man week. (It’s not only my pattern though. Lots of people experience it, too). It’s the halfway point of the festival. It’s the day when I’m swept up in a whirlwind of intense emotion and physical stress, and all of my normal layers of protection peel off me like so much sunburned skin. A good, intense cry—some serious wailing into the wind— is usually needed on Wednesday. A catharsis of explosive proportions is almost always in order. The shrapnel is actually expected by friends and campmates, and they duck or provide emergency aid or ululate alongside me, as they are able.

I guess this catharsis is needed in real life, too. Sometimes I just have to screech so my own voice will drown out the harpies.

Wake up, don your superhero cape over your pajamas, and go outside to dig.

It is now the end of Week 12 of summer vacation. Week 12. Twelve. Did you hear me? TWELVE.

One more week (and a long weekend) to go.

I think, all in all, I’m in better shape than I was this time last year. This time last year I was ready to throw myself under a bus. Seriously. It wasn’t pretty.

During this circle around the sun, we have had a good summer, a busy summer, and one with more balance. Together we have had

·         evening walks

·         feasts of summer fruits

·         barbecues

·         creek play

·         rambling in the woods

·         swimming in lakes, rivers, and backyard pools

·         a trip to San Francisco and Oakland

·         a zoo visit

·         museum visits

·         glorious day-long brunches with friends at home

I’ve had plenty work to keep me occupied; it keeps my brain from turning to mush and eases my career worries.

Lucas and Asher have been occupied more this summer, too. I adore my children and think they are brilliant and fascinating (see this blog for evidence), but I know that we all benefit from having experiences away from one another. I don’t claim to have achieved balance in parenting/work, but it is definitely a major goal. Something I continue to strive for.

Asher has made friends and looks forward to playing with his kids now at Ring-A-Rosies preschool. He has even made it through a handful of full days, when I didn’t pick him up until 4 p.m. due to serious deadlines, and he napped pretty well on a little mat like the other kids.

Lucas has had a bunch of wonderful experiences with summer day camps and other activities (like pottery and soccer). Some weren’t so great (mainly the Fair Oaks Recreation and Park District day camp due to the “Thriller” incident) and we probably won’t be trying those again. But others were awesome. He is hoping to do more of the Science Adventures camps and Aquatics camps next year. The Effie Yeaw nature camps, though only a half-day, are lots of fun and Lucas feels really comfortable there. Plus he gets to hike the trails in the American River Parkway. He has done some amazing art projects that I wouldn’t have even considered doing with him because they are outside my experience. I wish that the less expensive camps had worked out to be winners; naturally it was the more expensive camps that Lucas really took to.

Next week, there is no day care. I’ll have to beg, borrow, and steal moments in which to work, when others can run herd on my little darlings. Grandma? Grandma?

I just can’t help but feel, now that kids all over town are back in school, that perhaps 13 weeks off during the summer might be a little excessive. It is very intense living with a choleric 7-year-old and a 2-and-a-half-year-old toddler!

Especially if one is just the tiniest, wee bit choleric, oneself.

My son is so competent! It was a lot to ask of him, really: sending him to the CSUS Aquatics Camp for five full days, where he was in the youngest group, the Guppies. It was physically challenging and challenging emotionally to be with a group of kids he didn’t know, with an instructor he didn’t know, doing things he had never done before. But oh, did he rise to the occasion!

The first day the kids learned canoeing. The second day was sailing. The third, kayaking. And the fourth day they tried wind-surfing.

We biked—on the water!— and kayaked with Lucas, with Ian and I taking turns. I had hoped we could all go sailing on the tiny sailboats, with Lucas at the tiller, but unfortunately the timing didn’t work out and Asher wouldn’t tolerate the life vest.

While kayaking, Lucas said, “Mom, do you dare me to flip over? Do you double-dare me?” I had to dare, and double- and triple-dare—even “ten-dare” him to flip over (to flip over a perfectly good boat on purpose), while he savored the suspenseful moment. I had to bite my lip and trust that he knew what he was doing. He flipped the kayak over, then righted it, and climbed back aboard, without dropping his paddle. It was awesome.

Then Lucas demonstrated the “wiggle board,” which I guess is a wind-surf board without the sail. He stood and jumped and wiggled it all over, and eventually paddled it in to shore.

I flashed to a picture of him as a young man on a beach, hanging out with friends and catching waves. And there will be girls (or boys, whatever!) gazing at him, admiring his prowess in the water. And I’m still savoring that dreamy image. 

A couple of weeks ago on a Friday evening we packed up the lot of us and headed up the hill to Strawberry, where Mimi, Grandpa G’s charming girlfriend, has a lovely cabin. Ian would probably like it to be known it take a long, long time to pack the four of us to go anywhere, especially overnight. Still, the effort was well worth it.

Mimi is such a gracious hostess. She thinks of everything, and her mountain getaway is full of her love expressed in the tiniest of details. Antiques from her childhood summer home, a log cabin in Idaho, decorate her Forest Service cabin in Strawberry. Every object has a story. Every book on the shelf has been carefully selected to sit there, waiting for a curious visitor to page through it. Every dish in the kitchen has it’s special home and origin. Even the jam jar has a tiny silver spoon because if it didn’t, the homemade jam wouldn’t taste as good. It’s really quite astounding that Mimi has poured so much of herself into a place that is used only sometimes.

My boys had a blast digging in the dirt and exploring the woods. It really doesn’t take much to keep small boys happy—some sticks, rocks, or mud is all they really need.

(Lucas invented some kind of esoteric game with small stones. ) Add in some magical running water and it’s heaven on earth.

We spent part of Saturday day at a small lake where the Boy Scouts have a permanent camp. It’s called Cody Lake and it was lovely. We enjoyed listening to all the bells coming from the camp across the lake. A line of boys wearing funny hats hiked past our picnic spot beside the lake.

Lucas naturally dove into Lake Cody and swam, despite the chill. Daddy accompanied the little guy into the water, which was clearly exhilarating!

We dined on delicious food, as is usually the case whenever we’re with Mimi and GG. Organic produce from our CSA came up the hill with us, including some amazing tomatoes.

By far our favorite moments were spent chatting together, exploring Lucas’s “private” island, and splashing in the creek. Maggie the dog was good-natured and always patient, unless you happened to be a squirrel or a chipmunk, in which case all bets were off.

I happily finished the baby blanket I was knitting while on this trip. This year I didn’t need to bring any freelance work with me, so I just relaxed and enjoyed myself. It was so nice to be out of town and in the woods, listening to the breeze sigh through the pines.

There are more photos on my Photos page, so click over if you like wildflowers, woods, creeks, and kids.

Hold out.
Take only the worthy guest.
You are the guardian,
you the sacred host,
your body the temple.
Keep your sanctuary safe.
Receive no one without
deep mutual welcome.

Take in only angels—
those sent by God
bearing messages
of recognition—
I see you, entire,
complete, wholly—
all suffering,
all goodness,
all power,
all mirth.
Bright radiance inside,
and the silence, the darkness.

Such ones as can speak these words
will inspire you to conceive
and help you give birth
to the divine child.

In your union God sees
and becomes one with
Godself in each lover.

Between the legs of your dance
is the Gate of Heaven. It waits
for the true lover to enter
and create the union
of Heaven and Earth.

This communion of sex
is no sweet foretaste
but already participation,
enactment of Heaven,
the best there is from God.

You were born for this.
Do not say yes to less
than two loving fullnesses
overflowing into pure bliss…

—Alla Renée Bozarth

A portion excerpted from the poem, “Pure Lust, Perfect Bliss—Holy Communion” by Alla Renée Bozarth, which is published in the audiocassette, Reading Out Loud to God, Wisdom House copyright 1990; and the printed books, Soulfire, Yes International Publishers, copyright 1997; and The Book of Bliss, iUniverse copyright 2000. All rights reserved.