My family just returned from a week long trip to Alabama for our newer tradition of a bi-annual family reunion. Every two years (since about 2013) we have tried to gather for a week together of reconnection. Our goal is to enjoy one another in playful and restful ways. Watersports and hiking are becoming the norm as we practice this gathering and as the children of the crew become more able-bodied. We’ve tried to meet in the middle of where we all live, which has been Tennesee, Georgia and Alabama thus far.
This year along our way, we stopped in Franklin, TN for a southern meal at Puckett’s. The open mic musician enjoyed teasing us about our destination and how nothing good is in Alabama. While it may not sound noteworthy, it was a lovely week in a big house on a lake with beloved family members.
We found this old and very large house on Weiss Lake in AL that slept all 26 of us!
First Annual Olympic Family Relay Selfie!
As we were driving home to St. Louis at the end of the week, my husband and I were listening to a podcast by Annie F Downs (That Sounds Fun!) with one of our favorite authors and speakers, John Eldredge. In Episode 388, they talk about his new book Resilient. One of the discussions centered around a question he asked his staff pre, mid and post pandemic. He asked what kind of reserves they had within themselves, what kind of bandwidth did they possess? Were they doing great with plenty of reserves? Were they doing terrible with low reserves, or somewhere in between those spaces? He asked this question because he wanted his staff to be aware of their own capacities and resiliency and to share in seeing the capacities and limitations of one another.
As I listened and pondered the week that had just passed, I started to think about rest, about my own reserves and my own capacties as I enter my favorite time of the year. This past school year felt challenging, like I squeezed the last bit of effort out that I had in May. Summertime is one of those seasons where I feel our family lives life to the fullest. We soak up eating dinner at weird hours. We cherish what we call “golden hour” as the sun sets in our backyard making everything glow a golden hue. We stay up late, we get up later and we try to connect deeper and more frequently with people. We do projects and we practice different rythms from our school-year, regimented and highly planned out life. I ran towards summer this year and fell into it’s arms with a deep sigh.
Thinking back on how I bounced in a floaty on the lake listening to everyone talk, laugh, swim and take turns on the boat we rented, I realized something. It’s as if summertime fills my tank of reserves that I pull from for the whole rest of the year. Summer is a time we welcome the unforced rythms of play. And the end result is a me who is ready for the schedule, ready for the organized chaos of raising kids, working, and pouring out. Summer is when I pour in.
Summer also has some things I don’t love; it’s not all butterflies and rainbows. But the invitation to lay some things down, to move and live and breathe at a different pace, to sit in a chair and read a book and not make dinner in a timely manner, to sleep a little more, to try a mini adventure or start a movie at 9:00 pm on a week night (scandalous!), these are the things that are outside of my “normal” life that increase my resiliency for the hard things, the sad things, the things that stretch and strain me. It’s a little bit of chaos but it has it’s own flow that I’m eager to dive into when it comes time. Long live summer.
So how are your reserves? What is your bandwidth right now? What is it that releases you from striving and straining and invites you to just be? Can you let summer disrupt you a little?
Quiet Gardens & Raging Seas 