This summer, time to enjoy what’s fleeting

Published 10:52 pm Thursday, June 25, 2009

You could, of course, think of any chunk of time this way: “Today, this month, this hour will never come again.”

Do that, though, you’ll drive yourself a little crazy. If at every moment you stopped to consider how precious and fleeting time is, you’d never be able to waste an evening watching “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!”

If you actually tried to count how many summers or birthdays or years with your kids you might have left, you’d barely be able to sleep at all.

Good thing we don’t think that hard about time. We’re occupied with work. We’re worried about the economy. We stuck in traffic trying to get the kids to sports camp. So they fly by, these seasons, from the snow that hung around last Christmas to hearing the booms of July Fourth fireworks.

Weren’t we all just fussing around about some Y2K technological meltdown? Weren’t we just stashing cash and storing drinking water for whatever crisis the dawn of 2000 would bring? It seems that way to me. Yet here we are, closing in on the 2010 Winter Olympics just up the road in Vancouver, B.C.

Wow, a quick 10 years.

Speaking of 10 years, on the last day of school, my 10-year-old gave me some food for troubling thought. It came in his answer to my offhand question. Wasn’t he excited for summer?

Nah, not really. Nothing much changes, he said.

In the summer, like always, he’s up early and out the door with a backpack and a lunch box. He goes to day camp five mornings a week, not school. The days are as fun as camp organizers can make them. The kids go swimming. They eat lunches in parks and spend afternoons at the library. He comes home with wet towels and swimsuits. He has fun, but the days are long and regimented.

In October, he’ll turn 11. With that thought, I have the keenest awareness that this summer won’t come again.

On the other side of the state, my parents spend their days still working in the yard of the Spokane house where I grew up. At 86, they’re in good shape. They have a 10-year-old grandson they don’t get to see often enough.

Here’s the good news — for me and my family. There’s been a change of summer plans.

I’m taking a big block of time off, from now until mid-August. I don’t plan to write a single article until I get back. I’m not planning much, beyond enjoying my family, visiting Priest and Coeur d’Alene lakes in Idaho, and doing some chores. I’ll be in Everett as much as I’ll be away.

Summer is here, and then it’s gone.

See you in late August.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.