I'm home. I'm exhausted after our red-eye flight from Portland that arrived in Chicago at 5am. I'm weary from hiking Mt. Hood and from visiting the waterfalls of the Columbia River gorge. My brain is still in overdrive from my week of sermons and seminars. But I'm home, hallalujah!

I'll spend today by the pool, dozing and sunning and recouperating from my overdose of activity. I'm too tired to even dress properly, as I sit here wearing my black and white bikini under a short khaki skirt, no top, and with pink flip flops. Jewelry, forget it. Its just too much work to even think about putting on my rings, necklace, watch, and earrings. All I want to put on today is sunscreen. Likewise, it's just too much work to wash my hair. And shaving is unthinkable, I can be stubbly for a day.

You may be thinking, gentle reader, oh, she can write all these words, but she can't even shave her legs. Shame on her. She will go to the pool as the bride of Sasquatch rather then spend ten extra minutes in the shower. To which I respond...writing is easy. Grooming isn't. I can sit here and think and type and it doesn't seem at all like work. Indeed it seems cathartic, even theraputive. I understand the theraputive value of a bath or a spa visit as well as any woman, just not today.

So this Mrs. Sasquatch is off to the pool. I'll be there bleary-eyed, unadorned, unmatched, and unshaved.  Perhaps Mr. Bigfoot will be there to appreciate me.  You know, the guy with the exceedingly hairy back.

We're in our fifth straight sunny day with the temperatures in the upper 80's or 90's.  I now see why summer drinks come with little paper umbrellas.  They need the shade to keep them cool.

I'm in day two of "doing nothing" or "summer vacation in my backyard" mode.  I'll be in shorts and a tank top, except when I'm in a swim suit.  The girls are going to Orchestra Hall tonight to hear Ashley's all-time favorite piece of music, Verdi's "Requiem."  I'm tempted to join them, but the thought of doing my hair and nails and dressing for the concert seems pretty daunting right now.  Going to the Symphony is definitely not a "nothing" thing to do.

On Tuesday Mara and I will be off to Portland for a week to attend our church's General Assembly.  This is an annual event where representatives from all the Unitarian congregations in the States and Canada join together for five days of discussion, debate, workshops, and worship.  Mara went to GA last year in Saint Louis and she begged me to take her to Portland this year.  A seventeen-year old girl so interested in the inner workings of her church, how could I refuse? 

While Mara and I are on our mother-daughter trip Mike will be taking Ashley to her summer camp at Interlochen, Michigan.  Interlochen is a music and arts camp where the kids' orchestras perform a new program once a week and the campers practice individually or in groups at least five hours a day.  Last year Ashley's orchestra played Shostakovich's 5th Symphony, Verdi's Requiem, Holst's The Planets, and Beethoven's 5th Symphony.  And this wasn't even Interlochen's top orchestra.

Ashley goes to camp for six weeks and this will be her fourth year there.  She's been in touch with her camp friends by internet and phone and she even visited the Interlochen Academy last March.   She loves the freedom of  camp and the comraderie of her girlfriends.  At Interlochen she has found friendships with like-minded artists and musicians that she hasn't found in her high school.  Interlochen is very expensive, but it's worth every penny.

When I return from Portland there will be just three of us in a much bigger and quieter house.  I'll consider that a trial run for when Mara goes to college in August.

My favorite thing to do in the summer is nothing. Sitting at a sidewalk cafe with a girlfriend is a nothing sort of thing. Drinking gin and tonics on the porch with my husband is definitely nothing. Sunning by the pool is the epitome of nothing. In the summertime I wear next to nothing whenever I can, the books I read are full of nothing, and my best moments come when my brain is empty and my mind is still.

Come June 1 it's just too hot and sticky to do something. The car has been in drive for nine months. It's time to put it in park and just sit. It's time to take notice of the scenery, greenery everywhere. It's time to feel grass under bare feet, and a breeze on bare arms and legs.

We (meaning my husband) have yet to install the window air conditioners in our eighty-year old house. We get by on an attic fan, ceiling fans, and glorious windows that face all four directions. In the evening we (my husband again) open every window in the house and enjoy the sounds and feel of the close summer night. Every morning we (hubby again) close all the windows to keep the house cool, and we repeat the process at sunset. We cook on the grill, or the microwave, or eat salads. Dinners are taken at the table in our backyard garden. The oven is dead to us for the next couple months. The kitchen table is a home for unread newspapers.

Of course, life goes on. Laundry gets done, the garden gets watered, I practice piano, we go to work. But it's all different somehow, slower, less hasty. I do the laundry late, after dark, and not in the great heaps of wintertime. Major gardening is done. Now all I do is deadhead and aim a hose. Even the grass has stopped growing. Work is abbreviated, the lawyers are taking their vacations and the girls are dividing days off between ourselves. I take every Monday off. And when I do come home from the office I leave a trail of pumps, hose, skirt, blouse, and bra across my bedroom floor on the way to my dresser and my shorts and tank top.

And here I sit, in my tank top and shorts, no shoes, with a glass of ice water by my side and a cool tile floor under my feet. I'm wearing next of nothing and doing next to nothing and enjoying the entire experience. TGIF.