How We Do Summer

Adam surfaces from the clear, slow-moving river he has just jumped into. He sputters and gasps, invokes Divine intervention. “It’s so COLD!” he cries, as if emerging from glacial runoff. Quickly he attempts to pull himself up onto the large surrounding rocks, slipping on the algae-covered ones beneath the surface. He slides to another area, squawking because he is still in the water. He finally heaves his brown, southern California-beach-going body out of the pristine southern Oregon river and onto one of the large rocks that line its banks. It’s his first summer in Oregon in ten years.

*

Summer means different things to different people. Many special needs families experience considerable difficulty in the summer because their children’s all-important routines are disrupted. Parents who are at home with them have to deal with the fallout. And working-outside-the-home parents whose children finally reach a point where they can stay home alone during the day return to a thrashed living room and an empty refrigerator, at best.

Summer for us, for the past ten years, meant that Neil and Adam would go to Los Angeles to visit their dad for several weeks. They often went to the beach (the same beaches I would frequent while growing up there) and checked out various museums and other cultural or entertaining attractions in the area. Meanwhile, my summer weekends in southern Oregon have been filled with day trips to any of the glorious rivers we are bestowed with here, driving up to breathtaking Crater Lake National Park, hiking the small but interesting peaks surrounding our valley, wine tasting at our award-winning vineyards, and going to concerts at an outdoor venue where you can picnic under the stars and listen to beautiful live music. There’s nothing else like it.

But this year, summer is different. Adam had been in L.A. with his dad for the school year while Neil had still been in Oregon with me. We wanted the boys to have some brother time as well as alone-time with both parents, so Adam came up to Oregon as soon as he was out of school, and Neil, instead of going straight to L.A. as usual, remained with us for almost three weeks before flying down. I did not enjoy coming home from work to a frat party (minus girls, at least) in my living room: dirty dishes, food trash, and countless DVDs strewn everywhere, but the boys had fun, and last week I got to light Fourth of July fireworks with them! I haven’t been able to do that with them for years! Neil left for L.A. the next day, and Adam and I have been enjoying time together watching X-Files episodes, having some pretty deep discussions, and going out to the river. Next week I’m planning on taking him to an outdoor concert (Earth, Wind & Fire), and the following week we’ll go up to Crater Lake to enjoy a boat tour led by my mom, who is an Interpretive Ranger there. I can say without a doubt that this is my favorite summer ever.

*

Back at the river, Adam sits near me on a towel, complaining mildly about the water but not shivering because the air temperature is in the mid-90s. We eat chicken for lunch and walk up along the rocky sides of this small branch of the Applegate River, where the ten other people (and their dogs) who happened to drive here this afternoon are either sunning themselves or jumping into the pure, crystalline water below us. There is also a gorge area where the water surges over small boulders, a natural water slide several yards long. People take turns going down the chute, and some boys younger than Adam take off down it. He decides to try it, and by the time he gets to a point where he can climb out of the river, he has gotten used to the water and elects to stay in it for quite some time. I join him, feeling the cool water surrounding my skin, welcoming me as I glide through it.