Summer so far. . .

I meant to post this weeks ago, before the Fourth, which I think of as the middle of summer. But honestly, the real apex around here is county fair, which is always the third week of July…

Great Falls, Montana, soccer complex: It’s been a rocky season this spring. We had our first taste of cliques, discovered the difference between not-nice and not-friendly. Some girls are good at the game but not as good as being on a team. Bossy on the field, pointing out what you did wrong but never what you did right—this approach undermines teammates.

My daughter insisted on quitting; we relented. But then we thought, my god, she will not always be able to walk away from such people, and what better way to learn how to not be that person? We un-quit. We went to the state showcase In Great Falls.

You’re probably expecting a happy ending: and they won and we all felt vindicated! No, that is not what happened. We won, but every game was a struggle. I watched my daughter flex that most elusive muscle: resiliency. I never could have done it. I would have crumpled in tears, especially during the game late in the tournament when there were no subs and it was sunny, no wind. Hot and exhausted, with a red-faced girl, blond ponytail halfway down her back, telling you where to go, no over there! You shoulda had that …. sounds like hell to me.

On the first morning, I stood near the snack shack, watching my son on the playground before the game. A woman, probably a grandmother, set down her bag on the bench opposite me and began rummaging. I had my back to her, said nothing. Then I heard a cricket. It was so loud, so insistent that I assumed it was her phone.  I turned to say, “Is that your ring tone?” She blinked twice, then, “No, I believe that really is a cricket.”

Supermoon: KOA Great Falls, Montana: We stayed in a Kottage at the KOA. The kids and I found a nature trail, crossed a mosquito-infested bog and followed the path through thigh-high grasses to a wooden swing set up on the bluff. The sun had set but the moon had not yet risen, giving the evening that silver glow it gets in June out on the prairie. Purple tinged. We sat on the swing together. Below us spread a vast plain carved by the Missouri River. People looking at it hundreds of years ago couldn’t have known it was the longest river in the United States, longer than the Mississippi by two hundred miles. Would that have mattered? Does it now?  I sat on the swing. My boy climbed one side; my daughter climbed the other. I thought: sittin’ on a swing with my kids, on the edge of the world.

Robin: Our yard transformed to an English garden. Green beyond imagining. The perennials under the apple tree look like a Sunset Magazine photo. In the middle of this picture, something violent: the dog chasing a blurred, squawking creature, and behind the dog, a very angry, loud robin. The whole family saw at once it was a baby bird she was chasing, probably his fledgling flight from the nest under the eaves of our neighbors’ house. We prevented a murder, then ran into the basement to watch the thing panting in the grass from a lower window. No sign of the mother. We kept the dog inside, checked on the victim several times until finally, after an hour, it was gone. “Dead,” whispered my husband. My lips pursed in silent agreement.

Later I stood in the side yard and watched the mother land in the maple out front. My jaw dropped in shock as she came to a low hanging branch just above my head: there he sat! He opened his mouth and gave the most pitiful sound. She stuffed a grub inside and he shut up. I called the family; we stood below marveling: how did he get up there? How will he get anywhere else? He will learn to fly. He’ll have to.