One Jar at a Time

Grabbing and holding onto the best of right now, (especially if it's hiding.)

Every August I sit down and write a recap of our summer. This year, mid-August looks nothing like it has in the past. What does feel familiar is the sheepishness that creeps over me with this ritual. I am forever trying to get summer exactly right, forever half-failing, yet always ending up amazed at the way life carries on, somehow delivering what I needed all along, in spite of myself.

I just read through the archives of Augusts past and whew, our summers have been a mixed bag. From “Best summer ever!” in 2016, to “It was a terrible, wonderful summer” in 2018. Last year, I seemed to finally get a handle on things. “Summer is basically just regular life, but sweatier, and with more ice cream.”

Summer 2020 arrived when we weren’t even looking, careening into view during a bad case of global, existential vertigo. Basically, one day the schools said we were done for the year. That was it. That was the signal. We celebrated by shrugging at each other and taking another aimless lap around the house.

Now, they say my kids are back to school. But are they? Are they really?

Yesterday was Calvin and Ruby’s 8th day of school, but their first day in the building since March. Silas went into his building from the start, then was sent home for e-learning on the 4th day. (He’s currently down in the basement silently watching a Zoom math class, wearing a new back-to-school t-shirt and fleece pajama pants, the official pandemic uniform of 2020.)

I don’t know what to make of summer because I don’t know what to make of life right now. Normalcy has run for the hills, and with it, the mental bandwidth to accurately assess our emotions. It’s all just soup - the bad kind. It’s cold pea soup. It’s chicken soup. (No noodles? Why is this a thing?)

Here’s what I do know.

My garden thrived like never before, posing a real threat to my agricultural humility. I planted one little hand-me-down cucumber plant back in May and now it’s sprawled out like an heiress in the South of France, smug and happy in the sun, doling out perfect cukes with intensity I cannot match. (Recap: a plant is making me look lazy.)

The dill grew to tree-like heights, towering over my head, its knees against the cosmos for support.

I traipse out to the single Sungold tomato plant each day with a plastic cereal bowl and wind up thinking about the story from the Bible, where the widow’s oil never runs out. (Exactly what am I to do with so many Sungolds, God?)

It’s a hot, holy mess out there. A tangle of bitter and sweet, grace and goodness.

Maybe my dad’s legendary green thumb finally made its way down to me. Or, maybe I was just home more. Maybe attentiveness and hope really are their own rewards.

I only know to say thanks. To God. To the sky. The dirt. To crickets and worms. Even to myself, because I’m discovering that’s allowed.

I sweep the patio, forcing myself to enjoy what is without the pressure of pretending I can control what will be.

I revel in this stretchy, slowing of the days/weeks/months, in being home to say yes when a new neighbor asks for a ride to work, in having my kids near, even when it’s hard and I’m tired. I cut stem after stem of zinnias, tucking in clippings of the Thai basil that proliferates far beyond our capacity for August curry. I laugh at jokes that are only medium-funny, because I know they won’t last forever.

And I stuff food into jars, not like my mom does - standing all day in her kitchen, swatting at flies, preserving by the bushel. That isn’t my reality. But if I really believe every bit of it counts, I’d better scoop it up.

Hope, pickled and preserved. An alter made of vinegar and time.

This is good. You’ll want to remember this.

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Summer 2020 in Numbers

Visits to New Buffalo Beach: 4

Trips to the lake: 2

Patio dinners with friends: 10

Baseball games: 13

Baseball wins: 12

Ice cream for no good reason: 9? 14? 172? It’s all a blur of peanut butter & chocolate.

Quarts of pickles: 11 (+ counting)

Work trips: 0

Zooms: AT CAPACITY

Pergolas built: 1

Hours under the pergola: too many to count, and what is time, anyway?

Trips to the garden: see above

Jars of freezer jam: 4 (strawberry,) 4 + counting (peach)

Toenail polish colors: 2 (I doubled my number from last year! Is there a prize for this?)

Books read: 17 (+ counting)

Trips to OH: 0

Trips to buy masks: 4

Pots of blackberry curd: 3

Neighbors who moved away: so many

Neighbors whose leaving made me ugly cry: 2

Hours Silas played with the neighbors last year: approx 25/week

Hours Silas played with the neighbors this year: 0

Number of times this made me super sad: I’m blue just thinking about it.

Pints of chicken broth: 10

Gallons of frozen blackberries: 2

Month of Silas’s birthday: 9th (September)

Month Silas began drafting his birthday list and weilding it like a geeky despot with a tech habit: 4th (April)

Sundays in church: 0

Days of the week that can still count as “church” if we let them: 7

Bike rides: 7 (why? idk.)

Nights without kids: 0

Slow weeknights at home: so many! never enough!

Wonky pandemic birthdays: 2

Times Calvin randomly talked to me in a thick Russian accent, often forcing unrelated references to vodka: 25

Number of times it made me laugh: 25

Pints of sub-par salsa verde: 3

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Fall is exactly one month away. Until then? We keep summering! Even and especially if it’s sad/boring/terrifically terrible. To help, I’ve put together a short list of Endless Summer staples, curated during my own time-warpy, trippy, “unprecendented” season of angst.

Endless Summer Minestrone: a late-summer family favorite. The pesto is mandatory!

Calvin, my 15yo son with impecable music taste, curated this Endless Summer 2K20 Spotify playlist just for us and IT IS EVERYTHING. Truly. Happy, fizzy, chill. It’s got imaginary-road-trip-with-the-windows-down written all over it.

Summer food MVP: Salad Ramen. CANNOT RECOMMEND HIGHLY ENOUGH. (Also, last year my food MVP was cold cereal, so you can see how even in the depths of despair, we’re accidentally flourishing.)

Summer desssert MVP: Peach-Thyme Galette (It sounds bougie but was super simple. It’s has the same PR manager as Glossier and if you don’t understand that reference, I send my congrats to you from beneath the fray.)

Summer food Lifetime Achievement Award: 10-minute Refrigerator Pickles

My buddy Marshall King put together this fantastic digital cookbook with proceeds benefiting local restaurants in my beloved city, Goshen, Indiana. Buy a copy of I’m Hungry, Let’s Cook and you’ll see why we almost never leave Goshen for food.

Watch my chat with Tim Soerens, author of Everywhere You Look: Discovering the Church Right Where You Are (Five stars! Fantastic book!)

Typically behind-the-times, Cory and I just finished season 1 of Last Chance U on Netflix. It’s like if Friday Night Lights and Cheer! had a baby…who said a lot of F-bombs. (A lot of f-bombs.) It was inspiring, entertaining, and one of the boys reeeally reminded me of Robert. We loved it.

I wrapped up Summer 2017 with this, “Right now, I'm choosing to trust that the Lord will see all of this to completion, that I can just ignore the map and drive, arriving exhausted but alive in the end.”

(Wasn’t I cute back then, with my low-grade melodrama over a summer that was absent a pandemic, a traumatic election season, and the many mysteries circling vulture-like around Taylor Swift’s newest album?)

Nevertheless, Psalm 89 offers this reminder, “It pleases you to make us strong.”

God gives us rest, strength, and even snacks for the journey.

Scoop it up.

We are going to be alright.

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