The Living Without Series
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Remember that thing called summer? Anyone? Anyone? I’ve got a serious beef with Mother Nature today. Apparently she’s decided to take a long holiday to the tropics and leave us Heartlanders shuddering in the wake of winter’s grip.
Let’s take a walk down memory lane. Waaaaay back last summer, I had a garden. It was my place of serenity. It was beautiful.  Clay built raised bed out of the abundance of felled trees on the property. Then I filled the beds with cow poop, top soil and peat moss. The plants loved it.  I did the ‘taters in a trash can’ idea that I read about on Crunchalota’s blog.They were wonderful. I haven’t decided if I’ll do them again this year since we have so much space to put vegetables in the ground.
 Ah, then there was the Gypsy Caravan where I picked up these lovelies and we sweltered in the heat.  This wasn’t taken last summer, but it’s green and my baby actually looks like a baby. And I’m hoping he didn’t eat that wormy apple, but he probably did. We have a mini orchard here in Kansas. I haven’t been able to identify all the trees. It will be a lovely surprise when the fruit starts to form. I believe we have several apple, a couple cherry, several peach and a couple pear. But, we’ll see for certain……if summer ever gets here.  Oh, this was the day I was reverting back to my ‘Granola’ days. Shouldn’t every woman wear a long sundress and flip flops to work in the garden? Yes, I think sometimes it’s a must.  How about the day Levi found my bright pink nail polish? At first glance I thought he was bleeding. Then I noticed he wasn’t crying. He spilled nail polish all over the carpet in my bedroom.  He got to sit in this chair and watch me clean it up. He wasn’t too happy. I wasn’t too happy. What makes me happy about his picture? He doesn’t wear a diaper anymore! See, there’s a happy story behind every tragedy.  This is one of my favorite photos from last summer. My dad came for a visit on his way through to Virginia to ride his bicycle in Bike Across Virginia. We went to Shakespeare in the Park. It was a lovely summer evening. There is something so sweet about an old guy holding a little guy’s hand.  Now, come on spring, rear your head! I’m done with winter! I’m sick of coats and boots! Mother Nature get your butt back here!
Last night Clay and I went out to eat and then decided to go to a movie, but we had an hour to waste, so I said, “Hey, drive through campus.”
The students haven’t returned from break yet, so the campus buildings were mostly dark and desolate. As we drove by the architecture building, Marvin Hall, and the art and design building, more commonly known as the A&D building I said, “Hey, think it’s open? Let’s go look around.”
Sure enough, Marvin Hall was open. It’s always open. I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t able to get into that building and I entered it at all kinds of unspeakable hours.
Clay and I roamed the dark halls of Marvin Hall, then we crossed over the bridge, which is called The Bridge because it links Marvin Hall to A&D and houses the computer labs. We peaked in the lab and saw one weary looking student working at a computer. ”Man, how many hours did I spend in that room?” Clay said in a whisper.
I looked at the ledge that runs under the windows along the wall where I’d spent hours sitting and studying. I looked out the darkly tinted windows on the bridge, but only saw our reflections. There we were the two of us standing in the bridge. The architectural element that connects two buildings, links together two creative and artistic training centers. The bridge that brought us together. It’s the place we would meet to eat lunch, read the paper, take a nap or cross over to visit the other in their studio.
We walked across the bridge and into the A&D building. I walked by my old studios. The familiar smells of wood, foam, paint, glue, charcoal and paper lingered in the air from the projects that were probably locked away in dorms and apartments or frustratingly tossed in a dumpster. All the caustic chemicals I used to inhale while building a model, it was so long ago.
I saw the name of one of my favorite professors on a door. I thought he was so amazing. He taught me how to think about design more thoughtfully, how to think through a process, to make something with care. His words mesmerized me. I was shy and intimidated around him. During the time I was in his class I got so stressed out about the model I was building that I threw it across the shop and it splintered into a thousand pieces. Guess who came in the door right as I was throwing my fit? Not the professor, but Clay. He helped me clean up the mess and glue all the stupid little pieces of balsa wood back together. That model was chosen by my professor to be placed in the presentation cases to be viewed by all the A&D students.
The next year I didn’t have the same professor, but his office was across from the shop that I practically lived in to build all my projects, so I saw him quite a bit and talked to him on occasion. During that year I had a terrible bike accident while I was riding home from Clay’s dorm. I basically removed all the skin from the left side of my face, shoulder and thigh. I looked like I’d been beaten. I couldn’t stay home from school, because I had a project due, so as usual I was down in the shop, building whatever design project I was working on at the time. The shop was crowded with busy students and I was trying not to attract attention to my disfigured face, but it was pretty impossible. I was sore, tired and wanted to go home and hide. I looked up from my project and saw Clay at the door. We walked out in the hall and shut the door to mute the noises of students, saws, drills and sanders. Clay gently wrapped his arms around my sore body, kissed the top of my head and asked how I was doing. Still wrapped in Clay’s embrace I heard the door behind us open, it was my old professor coming out of his office. He had seen me earlier and knew I had been in an accident. He looked at us and said in the sweetest voice, “Oh, that’ll make it feel better.” then he walked through the door to the shop.
So many memories were flooding my mind. We continued to walk down to the sculpture and ceramics studio. Clay had taken a ceramics class the summer after graduation to fulfill one last art credit that he needed. I remember carrying our baby girl into that studio to watch him finish some assignment he had.
I looked at the plaster mixing area and was reminded of the hours I spent mixing plaster for a “love seat” that I made when Clay and I were engaged. I spent days applying tile to it. It was so heavy I had to build it on a cart so I could move it around while I was working on it. It took four men to move it. A few years later, we took a baseball bat and broke it to bits so we wouldn’t have to move it again.
How different my life would have been if I wouldn’t have change my major second semester of my freshman year. How different Clay’s life would have been if he would have sent his application in on time and not had to come to school a semester late causing him to fill his studio hours with Drawing One where, “I saw a leggy blond walk in late, stick her butt out to sit on the bench and yowsa, I knew then I was going to make her mine.”
Walking through those halls with my husband I had no regrets, no yearnings to be back in that place. We walked back towards the bridge holding hands. So much has changed over the last nineteen years. I would never have guessed this would be our life. The two young struggling people that sat on that bridge talking about their future nineteen years earlier had no idea they would be walking over that bridge the parents of four children, him a successful architect, her a stay at home mom. I caught our reflection in the windows again as we passed by, those two people they’re not much different, older, wiser, fatter, calmer but who would have guessed, more in love.
We went to Mark Twain Lake for a relaxing vacation. However when we got home, I was really tired and every muscle in my body was a bit on the sore side because I water skied one day and I’m very out of shape.
I love to water ski and I love to drive a speed boat, deep in my heart I was meant to live close to a lake and be out on the water doing sporty things, but the Good Lord forgot to give me the skin to go with the water-baby lifestyle. It’s just not fair, but actually it is fair….get it? Fair? Like fair skin? No? You all have no sense of humor.
My husband is even fairer than I. His skin sizzles within a mere moment of being exposed to sunlight. I’ve never seen a man slather on spf 50 as efficiently as Clay and then still have a blood-red burn on his neck and face. If you come to our house in need of sunscreen you will find it in no less than 30 spf and located in the laundry room, van, truck, swim bag, purse, and all the bathrooms. We pride ourselves on skin protection. The sun is our enemy and sunscreen, clothing and hats are our weapons.
Seth has been learning why sunscreen is so important this summer. He has sported a few good burns because of his lack of enthusiasm against sunscreen. Therefore, he has a very cute freckly face.
 This kid can light a dark path with his whiteness. He’s easy to spot in a crowd of bronze skinned children. He can make the palest person look like they’ve been to a tanning bed.
We don’t have to buy white tights for our daughter so milky are her legs, she’s practically translucent.
 We’ve managed to save our children from the fried-raw-hamburger skin that Clay and I suffered through as children. Our kids complain and whimper when they get a little red on their shoulders or nose and Clay and I just look at them and say, “You have no idea how a real sunburn feels, no idea.”
One year probably when I was in third grade I came home after a weekend at the lake with every exposed body part fried to a blister. My armpits, behind my knees, the insides of my ears, my scalp, belly, back….all fried. I was burned so bad I got the shivers and took a hot bath but couldn’t make the water hot enough. I walked around the house in a pair underwear with my skin slathered with greasy Solar Cain. When the cleaning lady came over I regretfully slipped on my scratchy light green polyester robe and lay on the couch. She gasped when she saw me and wondered why I wasn’t at the hospital. Oh, Lord then came the peeling. I think I could have slid out of my skin and people wouldn’t have noticed I left the room. Some parts of me peeled several times before my skin finally decided it was healed. That was the summer that I got freckles on my arms and legs. Skin cancer seems imminent for me. Hopefully God will spare me that and just leave me freckled and wrinkled.
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Clay built raised bed out of the abundance of felled trees on the property. Then I filled the beds with cow poop, top soil and peat moss. The plants loved it.
I did the ‘taters in a trash can’ idea that I read about on Crunchalota’s blog.
Ah, then there was the Gypsy Caravan where I picked up these lovelies and we sweltered in the heat. 
This wasn’t taken last summer, but it’s green and my baby actually looks like a baby. And I’m hoping he didn’t eat that wormy apple, but he probably did. We have a mini orchard here in Kansas. I haven’t been able to identify all the trees. It will be a lovely surprise when the fruit starts to form. I believe we have several apple, a couple cherry, several peach and a couple pear. But, we’ll see for certain……if summer ever gets here.
Oh, this was the day I was reverting back to my ‘Granola’ days. Shouldn’t every woman wear a long sundress and flip flops to work in the garden? Yes, I think sometimes it’s a must.
How about the day Levi found my bright pink nail polish? At first glance I thought he was bleeding. Then I noticed he wasn’t crying. He spilled nail polish all over the carpet in my bedroom.
He got to sit in this chair and watch me clean it up. He wasn’t too happy. I wasn’t too happy. What makes me happy about his picture? He doesn’t wear a diaper anymore! See, there’s a happy story behind every tragedy.
This is one of my favorite photos from last summer. My dad came for a visit on his way through to Virginia to ride his bicycle in Bike Across Virginia. We went to Shakespeare in the Park. It was a lovely summer evening. There is something so sweet about an old guy holding a little guy’s hand.
Now, come on spring, rear your head! I’m done with winter! I’m sick of coats and boots! Mother Nature get your butt back here!
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