Initiation

Summer Fairies
Merry, Elspeth, J, and L, painted for a play early this week. Merry made them up with Magic Marker. Elspeth kept the I've-got-a-BAD-cold-bags around her eyes for a day or so until the pink finally came off.
A ripening quality to the light at 7:30 just hints that autumn is not far away, but everything else this evening hums with summer. Humidity trembles in the air, parents pushing strollers pass by our yard, a slight breeze falls from the ceiling fan.

After a wonderfully cool Wednesday, today was, as Beatrix says, a "hot summa day." A perfect morning for raspberry muffins, peaches from a local orchard, and a gazillion kids going down the slip 'n slide.

Today we added five more children as we welcomed two new women to our weekly parent group. Newly from Michigan, they're adjusting to the pace of life in our little corner of Pennsylvania-almost-West-Virginia, just as we did almost six years ago. I hope they come to love these green, thrumming hills as much as I have.

Meanwhile, we subjected newbie M to the initiation rites of Wazoo: either a wagon ride or a slip 'n slide down the Grand Hill. "But I have no swimming suit!" she objected, wrapping her sweater more tightly around her, shivering though there were no winds.

"No matter!" we mothers shouted. My friend S started to wave a fist in the air. T, who had to go down the hill blindfolded five years ago on a rusty RadioFlyer wagon, chuckled deep in her throat. "Let the woman slip 'n sliiiide," she drawled, pounding on her wooden leg (she lost it on what we refer to as the "wazoo incident").

The children howled like wolves.

Finally, faced with the prospect of losing such groovy friends, M gathered her courage, grit her gleaming white teeth, and slid.


*Here is an alternate telling of this tale: In response to an off-hand comment about the mothers sliding, M got up from her chair, cool as a cucumber, and slid, fully clothed and in the sight of Motheren and Children. I thought it was rather jolly and a good show.