Independence days

All three of my kids can now swim independently. Helena does this slow dog paddle thing and lets her head sort of loll back into the water. It looks pretty much like drowning, but I can tell by the blissed out smile on her face that all is well. She goes down the twisty slide over and over, while the other two dive and dart and canonball. It seems like it was just a few weeks ago that I had a four year old, a two year old, and an infant, and the thought of going to the pool filled me with great angst. And now I can read a book while they all swim.

I just finished (and loved) North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. It has been a reading sort of summer. Lots of novels (The Storied Life of A.J. Fickry by Gabrielle Zevin, The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler, This Side of Paradise and a few short stories by Zelda's husband, The Twleve by Justin Cronin, Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, and Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple. I read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt in there somewhere too--but maybe it was still spring.) Margie sent me 84 Charing Cross Road (loved! emphatically recommend) by Helene Hanff, and it made for a delightful afternoon at the beach. I also read one of Brene Brown's books on vulnerability, mostly because I kept seeing her name referenced in articles I was reading. I don't really read much nonfiction, except biographies and the rare memoir, and this book did not persuade me to change that. Is that vulnerable that I just confessed that?

 We had a scissor-tailed flycatcher family in a pine tree on our way to the pool. We discovered them because we saw the male having an aerial spat with a vulture 10 times his size. He chased it and pecked it until they were tiny dots so far in the sky we could barely see them. Then, finally, Daddy scissor-tail swooped back down to the nest, sans vulture. He and Mrs. Scissor-tail were really vigilant  parents, and yet only two of the four babies survived (one was smashed by a car, the other was beheaded by a cat or maybe a bird of prey. Yes, I grieved more than is appropriate. I mean WHY WOULD YOU GIVE FLYING LESSONS OVER A BUSY STREET???)  They actually moved from the pine tree to group of oaks right outside of our house for their final days of flight lessons, which was considerate of them. However, I also spent more time than was Probably Normal checking on those two fuzzy, adorable, tweeting survivors, clapping and scolding when grackles and mockingbirds got too close. Feel free to join my neighbors in referring to me as Crazed Bird Lady.

So, the summer flies by. We read and swim and eat at fairly regular intervals. Big changes are on the horizon, and I am trying to "dare greatly" and get dirty in the arena etc.