Present Over Perfect

sunny and you feel like you’re missing out. Too cold and
you can’t have the balcony door open, and the balcony is
the very best part of my temporary little retreat home.
When I look across the street, I can see the river, the
pilings, the weathered docks. The trees are old and tall,
higher than the roof, almost like I’m in a treehouse, and the
wind off the river is fresh and whipping. Sometimes a gust
spins through the room, and a piece of paper flies off the
nightstand or a door rattles on its hinges.
This last weekend was one of the sweetest yet, and part
of it, certainly, owes itself to my new learning: Memorial
Day Weekend in the past has been frantic shopping and
cooking and menu planning, guests upon guests, plans upon
plans, times and places and texts, a chaotic effort to ring in
the summer season with one more drink, one more ice
cream cone, one more boat ride before falling into bed.
And this year, none of that. We stayed on the beach for
hours, because there’s something about the beach that just
brings out the best in little kids—imagination and sand and
sun and yelping and tumbling around, all the good stuff. We
went to bed early knowing that, with all the fun, it would
take the little boys some extra time to settle down. We
stayed in our pajamas till eleven on Sunday, my cousins,
their kids and mine, their parents and mine, all sitting
around the Blue House kitchen table, a box of donuts from
Golden Brown Bakery and a pot of coffee. We made
s’mores and played with sidewalk chalk. We had breakfast
tacos from the farmer’s market and kept the kids happy with