I think most of us can agree that if something is going to go wonky, it will happen in 2020.
Many of us have missed birthday, graduations, weddings, visits with grandparents, as well as smaller things like county fairs, going to the movies, and simple grocery store trips. Imagine my surprise when pumpkins are what interjected normalcy back into our lives.
First I need to back up to March when the world shut down. As things were closing and cancelling one by one, our 9 year old asked, “We’ll still be able to trick-or-treat, right?” This silly momma laughed it off, saying of course, because who in their right mind thought certain government officials would want to keep us locked up for over seven months?!
Well, here we are in October, and various people want to cancel Halloween (which is a topic for a whole other post.) I was scrambling to find a way to keep some of our traditions alive, not only for our youngest, but also for our eldest during her last year at home. Enter our local pumpkin patch.
We live in an area that has multiple pumpkin patches, from easy drive thru and grab a few to large farms of pick-your-own. About seven years ago, we discovered one of the latter with which we fell in love, and we’ve been back every year since. It is a family-owned, multiple generation farm, currently run by a lovely young woman whose goal is to share her passion of agriculture with others.
I was worried the pumpkin patch would be another Rona casualty. Imagine my delight when they announced they would be opening … with slight differences of course, but at least opening! No hay rides – okay, I can live with that. No hay bale maze, cornhole games, or corn sandbox. I can deal with that, too. There would still be the amazing wagon deal on pumpkins, pick-your-own sunflowers, and the fantastic photo op of “how many pumpkins tall are you?” All great stuff, but the best news? The farm took a common sense measure on masks.
You see, the area is HUGE. Plenty of room to socially distance from others and still find your perfect pumpkin. That means no masks required (although recommended for the one person in your party you send to check out, which is also done outside.) Finally, FREEEEEEDDDDOMMMMMMM! Someone who recognizes that outdoors, breathing in fresh air, away from others, there is no need to strap something across your face, unless you choose to do so.
Pumpkins may not seem like a big deal, but I am incredibly grateful for this little bit of normalcy in our lives. And yes, I got a bit teary when I thanked the farmer for all of her hard work.
Mine actually fell in my lap. True Story. I got a call from a friend one morning that his job needed some last minute help, so I chipped in … to park cars.
Yep, I see you saying, “Parking cars?! How is that a dream job?” Bear with me a moment.
This was a family-owned canoe livery, where we rented river equipment to hundreds of people on the weekends, late May to mid September. That first summer, I would park cars from 9AM-3PM, then I would spend several hours learning the ins and outs of the business. By the next summer, I had been moved into the “office.”
I definitely use the term “office” loosely. It was an old, historic building, no air conditioning. We often worked 12 hour days jam-packed days, where someone would grab a tomato from the garden, slap together a sandwich for you, and you would grab bites in between customers. It was hot, sweaty work, dealing with every personality type under the sun … and I wouldn’t trade a minute of the 15 seasons I worked there.
You see, customers became friends. They came back year after year and wanted to catch up with you. I’ve heard that years later there are still people who ask for me by name. Most importantly, the folks who owned the business took me and the other employees as FAMILY. Saturdays were home-cooked dinners, and the fridge was always stocked for us. Many of us were given places to stay and sleep if we wanted. In short, it became my home-away-from-home. I was valued for my work, and I was loved for who I was.
My last summer there was over a decade ago, and it took a long time to find another job that made my heart that happy. I never let the exhaustion, the difficult customers, or whole weekends lost to bad weather drag me down. I was excited to go to work every single day and so deeply saddened when we had to close at the end of a season.
Now, I’m not saying your dream job is to work at a canoe livery. What I am saying is this: find a place that ignites your passion. Where the owners become your family. One where you actually miss it when you are on vacation. And above all, find a job where people appreciate your personality and talents and pour into you, leaving you a better person that when you first walked through those doors … or in my case, the field parking lot.
This guy was a scrawny thing the first time we saw him at the animal sanctuary. In fact, my daughter didn’t even pick him up at first. It wasn’t a love at first sight story (well, for her; my heart had a feeling.)
A little backstory for you: several years before, we had gone to the same sanctuary and asked to foster a mama cat and her kittens. We came home with a mother and barely 3 day old babies. Yeah, I know, I’m crazy. The kids immediately fell in love, chose their favorite babies, and named them. When it came time to send them back to be adopted, we claimed all three kittens and the mama (because how many female cats spend way too long waiting for adoption?)
We loved all of them to the moon and back, but one day, the worst happened. Our older daughter’s cat got out, and we couldn’t find her anywhere. We looked for weeks, and then months. Our whole family was heartbroken, but our daughter was especially devastated. I waited until I thought she might be ready, and then one day I said to her, “Would you like to go look at kittens?” She smiled and cried at the same time, nodding her head.
Once at the sanctuary, she actually looked at this guy first. Then she moved from cat tower to tower and back again, looking at all options. You see, she knew she didn’t want a kitten with similar coloring, but she thought she wanted another female. I, along with her two siblings, waited patiently.
And at that moment, it happened. This handsome grey tabby reached his paw out of the tower, touched my daughter, and meowed at her. That was all it took. She asked to hold him, and as she did, the volunteers told us his story. He had been found, almost dead, in a ditch. (In fact, his momma cat and rest of the litter didn’t make it.) Another mother cat, who was nursing her own litter about 2 weeks younger than this rescue, took him in and loved him as her own. His health seemed to have rebounded, and he was up for adoption.
By this point, our daughter was openly crying happy tears, the kitten was perched on her shoulder, and there was no doubt we were taking him home. In many ways, he rescued us. We have never regretted that decision for a moment, but it did start us on a path of learning all about unique health needs for him, and the cats, dog, rabbits, turtles, birds, hermit crabs, and bearded dragon we had a home.
I doubt there is a single family in the United States who is experiencing the summer they expected (and if you are the exception, I would love to hear from you.)
Like so many others, we’ve lost get-togethers with friends, cooking out, lazy days on the water, summer camps, and day trips to random places like the world’s largest hippo hang nail.
Unlike many of our friends, we didn’t lose the pool altogether.
Thankfully, the board split the membership into two groups, allowing us to make reservations to attend every other day. The pools are split into swimming zones, and families register for a certain time to swim. Not ideal, but certainly better than nothing, right?
At least that was what I told my kids. Inside, I was chaffing at having to plan out our pool times (after all, even in this weird 2020 summer, who wants to have someone else decide their schedule??)And when we had a stretch that all of our pool times where getting rained out, it really became hard to maintain the good attitude.
Then I reevaluated. Yes, we missed a few days. But on the days we were there, very often there were unclaimed swimming zones, meaning we could stay longer, which has been especially important to our youngest, who hasn’t gone anywhere other than the pool in I-don’t-know-how-long. But the most important difference is the one that will have the longest lasting impact.
My husband (and the awesome daddy to our amazing kids) has been able to go to the pool with us.
That may not sound like much to some families, but it is huge to ours. You see, I grew up in a family with a wonderful father who worked long hours so we could afford to go places like the pool, but that meant he was rarely physically there. I guess it should come as no surprise that I married a man who also wants to provide for his family. It has been slightly different in that at least my husband could periodically show up at the pool for 10 minutes or so to watch the children’s latest tricks or to treat them to ice cream. I’ve always been grateful for that. With the Rona came a new appreciation.
Due to working from home and being able to mostly arrange his hours, my hubby has been going to the pool with us almost every time. Not only that, he is IN the pool, playing with the kids, participating in any silly game they concoct. I can hear their laughter before I ever even make it to the pool deck. And it is the most amazing gift.
We’ve had some hard years. My husband wasn’t always the most emotionally present. The kids often referred to him as “grumpy.” There were times we clearly knew to avoid his negative attitude. But if there is a silver lining of coronavirus, it is that he is more present in our lives than ever, and he is making a tremendous effort to keep it all positive. Watching him in the pool with our kids has helped me to fall in love with him all over again.
So, yeah, this is the summer that wasn’t … but it is also the summer full of endless possibilities.
Yep, this one. The one with masks.
Now, before we get too carried away, this isn't a debate about whether we should wear masks or not. It is a simple explanation of why I won't be commemorating this season with multiple photos of my children with masks on their faces.
Part of this is easy. I want to capture their beautiful smiles and hilarious expressions. I want to see the way our eldest child's dimples shine, our son's habit of slightly sticking out his tongue when he is concentrating (just like his grandfather), and how you can almost predict with 100% accuracy what kind of request will come out of our youngest's mouth depending on the set of her lips.
The sadness, frustration, and difficulty of this season is already etched on our hearts. We don't need to look back at photos of ourselves in masks to be reminded, especially when said photos will cover up much of the emotions those pictures could tell.
I can hear people coming out of the woodwork now to say if we don't document it, we'll forget. First of all, I was trained as an historian before I chose to come home with my kids. There is plenty of documentation of masks in the current culture; you don't need to subject your children to front porch photo shoots in which they wear cloth face coverings of their favorite animated character to have evidence of your existence during Coronavirus. Secondly (and once again, as an historian), I can give you multiple examples of how we choose to forget the past even WITH photographic evidence right in front of our eyes.
I’m choosing to photograph the ways we are celebrating this season. Swimming, cornhole, water balloon fights in the front yard. More family game nights than I can count. Our eldest planning college visits. Our middle starting in-person Scout meetings again. Our youngest expanding her culinary skills. All wonderful memories, and all without masks.
Now, all that being said, if you are filling your SD card or cloud with masked photos of your family, you do you. We are all coping in different ways. For me, I’m going to go capture a few more gorgeous smiles.
