Traveling Pants

“Maybe there is more truth in how you feel than in what actually happens.” -- Ann Brashares, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

I haven't written all summer. Partly I was busy, mostly it just didn't seem important to chronicle my life. And maybe I was a little bitter that I have such a poor memory that for me to remember this summer next year I will need write it all down. Somehow not writing allowed me to deny the fact that life moves on and I probably won't remember this summer. Does that make it any less important?

Then I read this book that is all about the summers of four girls and afterwards I just wanted to write. Because maybe there is more truth to how I feel than what actually happens this summer. Five thousand different people could plan the same vacation but it is my feelings about it that make it my life.

And now that I am writing I cannot seem to write. I have written and erased seventeen sentences that began to explain my summer. But my life isn't a calendar where I can look at a date and remember what happened. My summer is Lancaster evenings, with the warm breezes bringing peace and happiness, reminding me to stop and enjoy. It's standing at the rim of Grand Canyon at sunrise realizing how small I am and knowing above all that that there is a God who created this earth and everything in it. It's swinging on a tire swing and picking red ripe tomatoes and riding for an hour in circles on a scooter even though it is ninety-five degrees, just because it is fun, and knowing I am still a kid. It's trying to love and show my love and not letting anger rule me even when kids can try my patience. It's being alone on a single ski rejoicing in the fact that I struggled to hold on and got up and there is that place where I am rushing along the smooth early-morning water and it is just me. It's coming home and being so happy to be home because my family loves me so much, even though my brother refuses to say it on the phone, which just makes me laugh because I know he does. It's playing board and card games for a whole weekend. It's having a dance party with my cousins in the living room, dancing and jumping and singing at the top of my lungs, off key. It's realizing that my cousins are growing up without a mom and wondering how it will affect their lives. Because it will. It's being with Allie at those times we click when I could just stay and talk with her forever. It's Brady hugs that clobber my whole body with his soft skin. It's late nights with Peter talking about not that important things, but realizing how good simple conversations are. It's knowing what the phrase “my heart sinks” feels like when I think about leaving. It's looking forward to the school year with both hope and apprehension.