Well, the summer is here and over the last few years that has meant the same thing; time for my kids to venture to Minnesota to see their grandparents.  That means a month on a Minnesota lake with fishing poles in hand or slow surveying of the lake in a pontoon.  While I grew up near the land of 10-thousand lakes, my kids have lived a stone’s throw from the Pacific with no nearby relatives.  Their mother will take the kids “up north” where they will spend all of July until I get them the first week of August.

Pictures from last year look like they were ripped from the mental image of Huck Finn complete with rolled up pants and freckled faces.  It is interesting to listen to my son tell me about the difference between “bass”, “crappie” and “northern”.  He loves to catch the fish, this year we’ll see if he’ll finally eat more than a simple taste of his quarry.  My daughter will also spend plenty of time fishing, but more for the thrill of the catch and to compete with her brother for the fickle bite of the lurking miniature leviathan.

This means a month worth of weekends to myself.  And while time off from being a personal valet and chef sounds like a nice change of pace, I already am bracing myself for the inevitable loneliness of not getting that timely hug or insistence that I tuck someone in.  Time flies.

An unsorted garage awaits my attention.  I used the garage as a “staging area” when I moved into my place in Grover Beach more than a year ago and has received little attention since.  It is a tangled mess of wires, stray socks, “important” papers I have not glanced at in 12 months and assorted “art” that I was wise enough to leave in the garage but apparently not bright enough not to transport.

I need to shovel through all of this because I want to de-clutter the inside of my place and would like, for a change, to have some organization to it all.  This is what I hope to do with my first weekend free.  But I think I also need to just let myself enjoy time free.  I am notoriously bad at this.  Everyday I find little things to do and often just forget there is a life to be lived out there.

I hope someday my son and daughter discover the real secret of fishing, that it isn’t about catching fish but standing there and just being in the moment.  Think.  Maybe not think.  Just be.

Maybe that’s what I need to do too, perhaps wading through the garage can wait.