Shhhhhh... Summer Is in Progress

It's quiet here, and for good reasons. Most of all, I've been away, sweltering last week in North Carolina while visiting family. I've been a single mom, with Henry out West for his brother's wedding. The heat and humidity made most everything uncomfortable, and we did all get cranky being housebound, but we did manage to swim a lot, consume frozen confections of various types, and even take in a Mudcats ballgame as the sun set at 102 degrees. Beer and Dipping Dots made the weather bearable.

I didn't write a damn thing other than a short scene for my novel that came to me one morning. My blog post was written the week before and was a retread from last summer. I've barely blog-hopped, tweeted twice, and don't think I popped onto facebook a single time in ten days.

Back in Baltimore, a tad less hot. For three days I've had the house to myself, and have used most of that time to work on final edits on a novel, readying it for marketing. It may be hot, but it felt like Christmas when I unwrapped helpful edits from two talented and trusted writers.

I've also ruminated a lot, mostly on being a mother and the difficulty in finding a balance between being a friend and being a disciplinarian. Raising children is a lot like writing a book -- there are infinite ways to get to the ending. I'm fairly tolerant of their antics -- they are just kids after all -- and try to use their less-than-admirable times as teaching moments. But sometimes Mama comes undone, and that's cause for reflection. Mostly I realize I not perfect, and neither are my children, and try to cut all of us some slack.

Reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz) which started slow but quickly catapaulted me into the culture, history, and mouthfeel of the Dominican Republic. I wish I understood Spanish, Diaz sprinkles the language throughout; I know I am missing the fullness of his work in my half-ass translations.

Two more days of vacation. This is the first time in 16 years I have been away from work for two weeks. I've enjoyed the laziness, the solitude, the reliance on pizza and tomatoes from the garden, the absence of the internet. It's gonna be hard to leave the slow lane. Peace...