Remains of Summer

photo found here

I am a summer girl. I love summer far too much for it to end. If I was any of the girls in the above photo, I'd be the one on top with her arms outstretched totally blissed out.

 I love the laziness of summer days with the sound of locusts filling the air as if they are children humming into a fan vibrating their voices. I enjoy endless afternoons with my daughter far too much to have to wait a whole year before summer eases it's way back into our days.

photo from here

The last remains of summer leave me feeling melancholy. I feel like a child who has been told it is time to go home after spending only moments in a candy shop. Or I feel like it is similar to when you know you will soon have to say goodbye to someone who you aren't ready to see leave. If only summer and I could visit a little longer.

photo found here

In 3 short days, it will be back to the routine of packing school lunches and sending my daughter off to school--sticking to a weekly bedtime routine, checking homework, and signing papers. If only I could capture summer in a jar to keep on my nightstand.

Beach and pool days have been the best with my husband and daughter. I like how my husband gently rinses my ankles and feet with a bucket of ocean water before we get seated in the car. I feel like Cleopatra or a Greek Goddess.

photo found here

I love how simplified a day at the beach can be where the sound of my daughter's laughter carries out over the water like a message in a bottle. Can you hear her joy on the coast of Africa sailing over the waves as she dances on the sand here in Florida? Come back to me, Summer. I'll be waiting.

Sealed with a Kiss, Kirsten

S.W.A.K.

To the Sea!

“"maggie and millie and molly and may"

maggie and millie and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

millie befriended a stranded star

who's rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves we find in the sea.”

E.E. Cummings

Ocean's Playmate

My daughter is the ocean's playmate. I love how a day at the beach can renew my belief that children are indeed capable of having fun without 21st century gadgets---where a piece of drift wood and the ocean are all it takes to enter a world of make-believe. 

Conductor of the Mermaid Symphony

---Sealed with a Kiss, Kirsten

S.W.A.K.

Sandy Toes

I love to walk along the beach, sandals in hand, and look for sea glass.

How simple and simultaneously grand the ocean can be between my toes!

---Sealed with a Kiss, Kirsten

S.W.A.K.