Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

graceful summer

Graceful Summer: Autumn Slips in on Tiptoes {The Last Post}

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Autumn masquerades as summer in scorching sun and dry heat. But I’m not fooled. Behind that tired, bedraggled costume, I see she has arrived and is waiting, patiently.
 
In the quiet of longer, slower days, bug-hunting boys now tucked into classrooms.

In honey locust leaves twirling like helicopter seeds, raining a golden sheet across the lawn.

In the grackle with the indigo iridescent head, cackling from the elm.

In the squirrel, crouching, one acorn clenched in its claws, another in its cheek.
 

In the carpet of brown pine needles pricking the bottoms of my feet.

In stripped-bare river birch branches and magnolia tipped with copper.

In sunflowers, dipping chins.


In open windows, misty veil over green, mornings draped in cool.

In scarlet tomatoes, butternut squash on tangled vines, soil turned, unearthed potatoes.

In one crisp leaf circling the fountain, a blanket crocheted across hammock cloth.

 

Autumn waits patiently. She slips in on tiptoes, so quiet I hardly notice.


But when I open my eyes, I see she’s nearly here.

How are you ushering in the change of seasons?

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The end of summer signals the end of Graceful Summer here. I have so cherished these Fridays! Thank you for helping me to slow down this summer, to breathe in the small moments and appreciate the many, many gifts. To all of you who participated in the community link-up, thank you. I hope you, too, found a bit of peace.

The last link-up for Graceful Summer:

Graceful Summer: An Hour of Quiet Every Afternoon

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I announced it nearly every day at half-past two. “Quiet Time!” I’d trumpet. “Time for siesta!”  And lest you assume it was to benefit the boys, let me set you straight: Quiet Time was purely to keep my own summertime sanity intact.

Rowan’s reaction to Quiet Time was always the same. “What???? Nooooooo!” Shock and betrayal written across his face, as if this ludicrous, offensive notion of Quiet Time was a brand-new idea. Next he’d erupt into a level of bellowing that should only be reserved for emergency appendectomies and the like. Then finally he’d stomp to his room, flop on the bed and commence low-level moaning. Occasionally he’d flip through a Magic Treehouse paperback or construct a Lego battleship. But mostly he moaned.

I didn’t care. I grabbed my book and plunked into a patio chair out of earshot with a glass of iced tea, the air stultifying, mere hint of breeze rippling the river birch leaves. Sometimes Noah joined me with his own book, although it bugged him when I rested my bare feet on his chair. Sometimes he spent the hour in his room with Finny, his fish.

Out on the patio I read Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun. I pretended I lived not in Nebraska, with 104-degree heat that baked everything in my backyard to the consistency of a Pringle, but in Tuscany, amid rolling vineyards and olive groves. In Tuscany, where it’s perfectly acceptable to sip wine at noon on a weekday.

Throughout the summer, In an hour a day I read through Circle of Quiet (Madeleine L’Engle), Escaping into the Open (a writing book, one of the best I’ve read yet, by Elizabeth Berg), Still (by Lauren Winner – I’m enrolled in a writers’ workshop with her this fall and am scared witless!), and, most recently, Wild (a memoir so good it made me almost quit writing altogether, by Cheryl Strayed).

I tell you, that hour every afternoon on the patio? It saved me. It may have saved the boys, too.

What saved you from certain insanity this summer?


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So next Friday is the last installment of Graceful Summer. We’re actually back in school here in Nebraska, but since August still feels like summer to me, I decided to continue the series until the end of the month. So come back one more time next Friday!

1. Write a post about a quiet summer moment and link it up here on Fridays. 2. Visit someone else and leave a little comment love – you might get a new creatively quiet idea!3. Please include the Graceful Summer button or a link in your post, so people can find us if they want to join in.

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Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

Graceful Summer: On the Shed Roof

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“Hi Mommy,” says the quiet voice, and I whirl around, looking right and left for the boy.
“Up here,” he says.
“What are you doing? Be careful! How did you get up there?” I shield my eyes from the setting sun, squint at Noah perched on the lawnmower shed roof. “I climbed,” he says. “Up the fence. Come on up. Come sit with me.”

I hesitate, eyeballing the listing fence, the height of the roof. I’m already in my pajamas.

“I don’t know, honey. I’m not much of a climber anymore.” I place one turquoise flip flop on the wooden rail, press into it. The fence lurches, peeling paint raining like confetti onto the cement. “Hold on a second,” I say to Noah, “I’ll be right back.”

I drag the rickety step ladder from the garage and position it as close to the shed as I can. It wobbles on the uneven pavement. Noah peers over the edge of the roof on his knees, one palm on the top of the ladder.

“I’ve got it, Mommy,” he says. “I’m holding it steady.”  

I’m almost to the top. On the highest rung I pause, gripping the side of the ladder with one white-knuckled hand as I push my sunglasses up over my hair with the other. I place one knee on the scratchy shingles, my other flip flop foot still on the ladder, my body spanning the cement. “You can do it; you’re almost here,” Noah encourages. And then in one groaning, awkward lunge, I pull myself onto the roof.

It feels higher than it actually is. We are, after all, only about seven feet off the ground. But it’s a whole new perspective on the neighborhood. We sit with our knees pulled to our chests and watch, quiet.

Across the alley, Marian brushes Archie, clumps of white fur blowing onto the golf course like milkweed fluff. Partially camouflaged behind the elm tree leaves, the golfers don’t spot us either, clubs clinking as they lumber into the hot haze. Next door Gary sweeps the patio, the rhythmic swish of the broom like a snare drum brushing the still air.

Noah gives me a tour of the roof. His favorite area is under the overhang, where the lichen patterns the speckled shingles like a Rorschach blot. He tells me the brittle grey greens up after a rain. “It’s always living,” he says nodding, eyes solemn, “even when it looks dead.”

I vow to return to the roof again. We’ll bring our books, I tell Noah. And maybe a blanket. We’ll come up here in our pjs with snacks after Rowan goes to bed. It will be our Mommy-Noah time.

I have big plans for that shed roof.

I spot Noah on his rooftop perch from time to time over the summer. Sometimes he calls me to come up, and I always answer the same, “I will…in a minute. When I’m done watering the garden.” Or folding laundry. Or loading the dishwasher. Or putting away the groceries.

Summer passes in a flash. The boys are back in school. There’s homework to do, choir rehearsal, soccer practice, lunches to pack.

And I wonder, as I water the basil in the evening sun, if the lichen on the roof is green or grey.

Do you {or did you as a kid} have a secret spot?

{and yeah, for the record, I did climb down the ladder to get my camera and back up again to take these pictures!}

Welcome to Graceful Summer, a link-up community here on Fridays through the end of August. We’re sharing stories about the smaller, quieter moments of summer – will you share yours, too?


1. Write a post about a quiet summer moment and link it up here on Fridays.
2. Visit someone else and leave a little comment love – you might get a new creatively quiet idea!
3. Please include the Graceful Summer button or a link in your post, so people can find us if they want to join in.



Click here to get Graceful in your email in-box.
Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

Graceful Summer: The Scent of Home

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The sun hangs low as we skirt fields of sweet corn, green and tall. Past white split-rail fence, horses with soft brown faces buried in grass, the long yellow barn, hay in stalls. Over the bridge spanning the slow Scantic where we waded in secret, scrunching up the hem of our shorts as the cicadas sawed.

I notice it the minute we pull out of the airport parking lot and hit the winding back roads. I never recognized it in all the years I lived there, long before I met Meadowlarks and grasshoppers, searing wind and flat plains. 

Now, though, it’s immediate, tangible. Moist and hot, dense and fertile.  A little bit of farm, a little bit of woods.

The scent of summer, of home.

It smells like hot tar and bicycles with plastic waffle-weave baskets and rainbow daisies, banana seats, tassles twisting from the handlebars like pom poms. 

Like the smudgy sweetness of newspaper print on fingertips, pulling the red Radio Flyer door to door, slipping pages under welcome mats.

Like afternoons sprawled on splintery wood, Sun-In and Coppertone SPF 8, Casey Kasem’s Top 40, acrid chlorine on warm skin. 

Like mornings in the aluminum rocker with the cracked floral cushions, bare feet brushing astroturf, floorboards creaking, Where the Red Fern Grows.

Like towels heavy on the clothesline, cidery apples melting into the grass, blueberries piled into green cardboard containers on the roadside stand, White Owl cigars, Dad in his driver’s cap on the back deck.

It smells like my wedding day, hot and still, veil clinging to my back, Nana’s Chanel No. 5.

We drive from the airport in light the color of sunflowers, the boys next to windows all the way down. I sit between them in the back seat, my hands on their knees, wind on my face. And my dad brings us home.

Have you ever been transported somewhere by a familiar scent?

Click here to get Graceful in your email in-box.
Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

Welcome to Graceful Summer, a link-up community here on Fridays through the end of August. We’re sharing stories about the smaller, quieter moments of summer – will you share yours, too?

1. Write a post about a quiet summer moment and link it up here on Fridays.
2. Visit someone else and leave a little comment love – you might get a new creatively quiet idea!
3. Please include the Graceful Summer button or a link in your post, so people can find us if they want to join in.

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Graceful Summer: On Hiatus

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In keeping with my promise to my sister to take a real, true blogging hiatus during our trip, I don’t exactly have a fresh Graceful Summer post for you today. In fact, these photos were taken two years ago, during our last summer visit to Massachusetts. But be assured, right now, I am doing this:

Floating in my sister’s pool…

Building sand castles at Rocky Neck Beach…

Cracking up with my sis and my BFF…

Sipping Chardonnay on the back porch, indulging in fresh New England seafood, cuddling my newborn cousin Casey and generally soaking up as much of my family as I possibly can.

As Mary Oliver says in her poem “Sometimes”:

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

So I’m doing exactly that this week.

I’ll be back on Monday — thanks for the Graceful hiatus!

What are your favorite summer vacation memories or moments from this year?  

Welcome to Graceful Summer, a link-up community here on Fridays through the end of August. We’re sharing stories about the smaller, quieter moments of summer – will you share yours, too?

1. Write a post about a quiet summer moment and link it up here on Fridays.
2. Visit someone else and leave a little comment love – you might get a new creatively quiet idea!
3. Please include the Graceful Summer button or a link in your post, so people can find us if they want to join in.

Click here to get Graceful in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!