Plink, plink

Plink...plink...

Plink...plink...

The rain dropped steadily onto the surface of the pool as we peered out at it.

Plink...

The drops hit the blue surface and leaped up a bit before dropping back to the surface and below.

Plink...

We turned from the window to our indoor activities. The kids started coloring in coloring books, I was looking at pictures of "organized" houses online. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Square boxes containing living spaces shot through with light, perfectly organized and promising to motivate me to do the same. Purge this, sort that, clean your way to an inner nirvana. The articles were more suited to New Year's resolutions than a summer day, although the photos shouted of beach houses and clear summer sun.

Plink...

Summer sun that wasn't hanging around outside my window just then. Disorganized me, and disorganized weather...cool temperatures, rainy day in July. Life couldn't exist in a perfectly organized box shot through with light, the weather outside knew that. The disorganization fed the creative energies of grass and tree, leaf and flower. I turned from the perfect pages and looked back outside at the greening plants to watch the water running in rivulets.

Plink...plink...

What a perfectly disorganized summer day.

~~~~~
This post was written for the One Word at a Time blog carnival hosted by Bridget Chumbley. Please visit the carnival for other takes on the topic of "Summer."

Photo courtesy of Photobucket.com

Days of Summer

Things have changed a lot since I was a kid whiling away the hours of summer vacation. Take, for instance, my son's artwork above. Still the bright sun and rainbow, still the green mountains we all love...but that's not a Magic Marker drawing. It's from my Paint program on the computer. Who would have thought that kids would be drawing on computers just a couple-three decades after I was banging on a manual typewriter?

Not to worry, I don't give up my computer easily. Thus, the children must still express their creativity through the time-tested methods of Crayola, sticks, or mud. With the semi-drought conditions our little corner of Eden is experiencing, there is plenty of dirt to go around for stick drawings, maps of forbidden lands, or just throwing at each other until they are both browner from dirt than from the sun.

I'm just thankful that classes are behind me and I've had the chance to decompress a bit. It always takes a week or more to slip into the hourless routines that make up vacation time, but we've finally reached that enviable point when sunshine sets the day and time loses its meaning. Except for meal times, which seem to be announced with astonishing regularity. Like right now. Amazing how the kids find a way to drag me back to reality for a bit.