Summertime Diaries

Libby holds, sleepovers, and five years ago

Tonight, after dinner, we walked, as we always do, and it all felt the same but for the sky, soft pink on the horizon, orange on the treetops, glowing white clouds on top, the kind you can draw, and then, as if there wasn’t enough to look at, it looked to be gray-purple above it all. The trees rippled as we went, flashes of pale green, the underside of the leaves. As we inched back down the street to our house, the breeze smelled of our gardenia bushes, the hundreds of blooms quickly wilting to the color of butter. And by the time we parked the wagon and stroller back under the carport, we could hear the thunder.

Kit has been requesting this week that she ride in the stroller, leaving Henry and Annie the wagon. This makes me sad a little, given her long legs resting uncomfortably at the foot of a stroller she once used as a bassinet, the stroller we walked up and down these streets with Annie in the carriage, when it was just me and my girls at home. Henry has gotten a little handsy in the wagon. Often we look down, and he has a clammy fistful of Annie’s tail hair. Or Kit will squeal in frustration, and Henry’s got his paci hanging out of his mouth like a cigarette, laughing as he tries to pounce on his sister. I know this is why she wants to ride alone. But it makes me feel sick to my stomach at the thought her wagon days might be over, that she might be close to a tricycle or walking beside us or something else grown babies do.

I’ve been sneaking away in the middle of the night every Friday to go sleep with her until morning. When she was in the crib, there were so many sleepy mornings I would nearly climb in there with her. (I did once, and the way the springs groaned, dramatically, let me know I was not welcome to do that often.) And so when we moved her to a big girl bed, I was relieved that on nights she didn’t feel good or was scared, I could just pack my pillow and go sleep with her. I thought about when she’s a little older, having sleepovers on the weekend, watching a movie in bed, reading however late she wants, girls only. In the meantime, I haven’t been able to help myself. She wakes up when I crawl onto the bed, and she immediately reaches her arms to me, hold you, hold you, hold you, and then we sleep, our faces centimeters from one another, as we did for naptime every single day of her life until a few months before Henry was born and I sleep trained her. It’s not a deep sleep by any means – today, I would call it a cat nap as she played with my hair and climbed on and off the bed to get books – but there will be a day I don’t do this, so I’ll do it until I can’t.

We celebrated our fifth anniversary this weekend, and all week, I’ve been in a state of disbelief it wasn’t just last year. I still can sit and remember how I felt those few days leading up to the wedding, sleeping in my childhood bedroom, obsessively clicking on the weather app, sitting next to Mom at the nail salon. I thought it should be a national holiday, my wedding day, as if the entire town was swelling in anticipation. And really, all brides should get to feel that way for a day or two, whether it’s true or not. Standing in church this morning, I thought about the music the organ played as I walked down the aisle, a piece taken from Psalm 122, “I Was Glad.” Then it got me to thinking about the fleeting moments from the entire weekend, memories that weren’t photographed, weren’t seen by many, but I desperately will hold onto for all of my days.

Like my sisters-in-law closing the prayer room door on me, leaving me to wait for my dad to come gather me and my train and my veil, after everyone was tucked into the church. I watched my bridesmaids through the glass of the door, and I couldn’t bear to look into their eyes. Then as Dad and I walked to the doors of the church, I begged him to tell me, why does it have to feel so sad, so emotional? We hid in a staircase as the organ started, in hazy yellow light, and our photographer asked us to look at one another for one last picture, and we just couldn’t do it. And I wish I had.

I remember, too, specific faces as I walked down the aisle, my college roommate’s mom, who would have dropped anything for us those four years together. I remember my friend Alec, his cheesy smile. He’d come at the break of dawn that morning with a charcuterie board for my bridal breakfast, this beautiful spread, a labor of love. I don’t know what he did the rest of that day, but wait for the wedding, and that could just make me cry again today. I remember my childhood best friend Jack, my sweet, precious Jack who walked down the aisle to start the wedding, he, the third in our friendship Nick, and my brother, Gabe, all in a line, my bridesmen even though I assume they were embarrassed to do so. And then he read the scripture before we said our vows. The night before, when I saw him and Nick arrive for the rehearsal dinner, I had cried at their presence. In the video of us walking down the aisle, I noticed one of my dad’s best friends Kenny, who did my parents’ wedding flowers and their wedding cake, was the interior designer for my childhood home, and was an immense help for my wedding flowers as well. He was the last to fluff my dress and help open the church doors, and then you see him stepping out of sight as we began our walk. Something about that was emotional for me, too.

You can see both Jack and Nick in these pictures, God's gifts to younger me, the best friends I'd ever had!

After we were married, they whisked us off to the ravine on the campus where we celebrated our reception. The sun was setting and the air was light and there was cottonwood fluff floating in the air, and we were married. I remember shivering with the magnitude of what was happening to me, feeling like time was slipping away so quickly, like I couldn’t consume as much as I wanted from this day, all the beauty of it. At the reception, I cried three more times: dancing with my dad, when two of the most precious of my friends from high school made their way to me, friends from drumline who sometimes I thought I might not see again, and then when I saw the buckets of sparklers, and I knew I’d have to leave. We cried in the limo, thankful for it all, and then changed into my church dress and a trench coat, for the weather was unbelievably chilly for the end of May in south Arkansas. We were awake by four a.m. the next day, on our way to Rhode Island. And that was my favorite moment of the entire thing, turning to Price in the taxi and telling him that even this time next week, we will still be gone.

A few days later, I called my dad while I sat out on the porch of our beach cottage, and we cried that the wedding was over. These weddings, mine and my brother’s, were the magnum opus of his floral career, things we’d dreamed of for decades. We grieved them when it was all over.

But somehow, it’s been now five years. My wedding bouquet is preserved in resin, half in a block at my house, the rest in a block at my parents’. I’ve not felt a single May 29 as beautiful as mine since then, all muggy and bright. I open my bottle of perfume once a year to smell the day as it was, gardenia and jasmine and brown sugar. I got Price a Atlantic Schooner for the mantel, wood for the fifth anniversary. And he got me cherry pajamas in honor of Cherry Hill. And we had chocolate ice cream I poured coffee into while it churned, and that was that, half a decade later.

CONSUMING

This week, I started and abandoned a Coco Mellors book, sadly. It was just far too vulgar to me, although I was enjoying her writing itself. We went to Sam’s on Thursday morning, our new monthly routine to save money on diapers and wipes and meat and Clorox wipes, and while I was there, I bought myself a copy of Virginia Evans’ The Correspondent. I’m a little past halfway, and I have loved every word of it. It had me in tears in bed last night.

Side note: for Kindle users, you might relate, I’m rolling my eyes at the fact that all my Libby holds become available all at once. It’s almost as if the app can suspect, too, the moment I open a physical book. She’s reading! She’s reading! Give her more options!! Currently on my hold list: Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Coco Mellors’ Blue Sisters (giving her one more chance), Sally Hepworth’s Mad Mabel, Emma Brodie’s Into the Blue, Gillian McAlllister’s Caller Unknown, and Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear (all very buzzy reads).

I also have been immensely enjoying anything and everything that comes out of the mouth of Jenna Bush Hager recently. I’ve found she has done a fantastic job coming into her own after Hoda left, and I’ve loved her with Sheinelle, too. I especially love following her book club and her publishing imprint, Thousand Voices (a lot of the books on my hold list are her recommendation).

PONDERING

If we should take Kit to see Toy Story 5 in theaters or wait until we can have a movie night at home, with Hennie. How beautiful my oakleaf hydrangeas are, as they turn a deep pink like embers. If I could transplant the ones on the east side of my house, so they could have morning sun, too. Our first summer story time at our church this past week, my children attached to my hip and screaming thinking I was dropping them off at nursery to fend for themselves. But then once we settled, I watched Kit wander the room, and I wished I had a camera on her everywhere she went, to watch how she interacts with people when she’s alone. I had a sinking feeling this week at the fact I’ve known always but am only just now realizing is painfully true, the fact that the time we get with our children before we have to share them with others is fleeting. I can’t bear the thought of spending my mornings with my babies, but yet, the day will come. Oh, I’m SICK.

WRITING

I didn’t write as much this week, but I still found it to be a productive few days. I finished rewriting the portion I wrote three years ago, and I discovered you can send documents to your Kindle and read them there. So I cleaned my manuscript up and sent it to my Kindle, and I read it as a full book all the way through for the very first time. I read with a notepad and a pen beside me, scribbling errors I noticed or things I’d change or times when the dialogue felt corny or forced or unnecessary. And this next week, I’m going to go make rewrite one more section, and then read it all again, this time on my computer so I can edit as I go. I feel myself slowing down with the heat of summer, as if my mind is swamp water. But we’ve come this far! I can’t quit now.