Natventures: July 2014

I walked out of work and the air was dead. It felt warm against my skin, the stagnant kind of warm that preludes a big storm. The atmosphere makes me feel like the air is yellow. Just as the door swung closed behind me and strike of lightning bolted across the sky followed immediately by long, low rolls of thunder.

This is my favorite part of the summer season.

Heading to my car, my eyes were locked on the sky. The clouds had rolled in, nice and dark and eerie and low. I rolled my windows down and turned the radio off as I drove out of the parking lot and into the street. The stop and go traffic let me watch the storm in my rear view mirror - we were headed in the same direction. The sky ahead of me was light and the sky behind me was dark. It was quickly overtaking the lines of cars.

The vehicles in front of me weren't moving and the lane next to me was clear, and as I went to pull into it I noticed the car behind me had the same thought. It felt like we were in a natural disaster movie - evacuating our town from the impending doom. We all had our windows down and a couple cars over I could hear someone rocking out to Eminem. Storm camaraderie at it's finest.

I pulled into the parking lot just as the rain started to fall. Thunder crashed in the sky again, along with a thousand little flashes of light.

"There's a storm outside!" I called as I ditched my belongings in my bedroom. I didn't even bother to close the door behind me. Kicking off my shoes and throwing my purse on the floor, I raced back out the front door like a six year old who just heard the ice cream truck coming. Erik had already beaten me out the door and together we stood on the deck to watch the lightning dance and listen to the thunder boom.

The storm only continued to get louder as we talked about how this felt like the end of the world - in a giddy, hollywood type of way. And then it started to pour. The sky just opened up and wind started to blow and it all came together in the best possible summer storm you could dream up. The rain beat against the roofs of the other apartment buildings in a way that looks as if it were snow drifting on a mountain. The water pooled in the parking lot, the trees were bending sideways and in the distance we could hear sirens.

I felt like my heart was going to explode. There I was, standing out in the rain, surrounded by thunder and lightning. This is all I ever wanted in life. My skirt was drenched and so was my shirt and hair, but I couldn't have cared less. Erik braved the elements and stood in the middle of the parking lot while the rain soaked him through to the skin.

This is how summer should be spent.

We stood on the balcony and listened to the crashes of thunder and watched for spears of lightning. And soon the rain lightened up and the thunder rolled away and just like that we were back to normal.

I think it is the fashion of summer to never turn out like I always imagine it will. I dream of long summer days with no responsibilities and more adventures than I can think up, and then what happens is school gets out and then people nag and nag and nag until I have another job because seriously, what adult takes three months off every year?

So I started working at Le Peep as a hostess and then I'll start managing again towards the end of this month. I jumped in head first the fourth of July weekend Thursday through Sunday when we were the busiest ever and I don't know what it is about having a job that makes me feel like all my freedom has been taken away from me, but it is what it is.

I wanted to take a vacation this summer. I wanted to road trip to a faraway land and spend some time on the coast, but you know, paychecks are apparently more important to everyone else but me. Money is the stupidest. (But let the record show that I really do like working at le peep and i have some of the best co-workers ever. i mean, if i have to work somewhere, le peep is probably one of the best places. just so you know.)

Hopefully I'll find myself on the river in the woods at least once this summer or I just might quit everything and become a hobo who lives on a train so no one can find me and make me become employed. I'm not sure why exactly I have this stance on working - probably because warm summer weather was made to spent laying in the sunshine down at the beach instead of inside a building, but not everyone seems to agree with that?

Anyway, moving on. (That was a great transition, I know. But also, I think it's been over a month since I wrote anything so here you go. I'm out of practice.)

June just seemed to kind of scoot by unnoticed. It rained a lot and people were bugging me to get a job too much for me to really just enjoy finally being out of school for the summer. Teaching is a tough profession and you work really hard during the school year that I feel there is some deserved time off once that final school bell rings the last day of classes.

Now, it's July and I've been a terrible blogger because I've been trying to live life. Working has kept me busy and when I wasn't herding people and keeping track of the wait list and directing customers to their tables, I was helping prepare for my brother's wedding. Mimi and I spent a whole Monday making mints and we had family in town and the Fourth and it was just what seemed like utter craziness that all climaxed last Friday night at 7 when the music started and we all walked down the aisle so my brother could marry the love of his life.

"The Best Day of My Life" by American Authors played over the PA system and my brother started off the procession with the officiant by heading down the aisle. I followed him with my arm linked to a good friend and the rest of the wedding party followed after. We danced down the aisle to the music, setting the tone for what was going to end up being the funnest wedding I've ever attended.

Standing up at the front, under the tree where my brother and his wife exchanged their vows, I didn't expect I was going to cry. I couldn't see Rylie, but I watched my brother through almost the whole ceremony. His lip quivered and his shoulders heaved and his voice quaked with all the pent up emotion one gets from taking a big life step. Their vows were so sweet and personal, their ceremony was simple and beautiful. I think one of the only traditional things that happened was that Rylie wore a white dress and they exchanged vows and rings, but everything else was just simply them.

They are going to be adventure buddies for life and they are going to make blanket forts and eat pizza and raise giant headed blonde chubby babies. And their home is always going to be filled with love - you could see it on their faces and you could hear it in the voices and you could watch it in the way they interacted. They might be young, but they're smart and we are just all so happy to have Rylie as part of our family.

Once the ceremony ended the music started up and we ate angel food cake, mints and fruit until we couldn't eat any more. And then we mingled and we dance and we had a giant nerf gun fight where the best man kidnapped the bride and held her for honeymoon fund ransom (a family tradition). Jimmy and Rylie got married under a huge tree with lights hanging from it and once the sun went down that's where they had their first dance. Rylie's cousin sang "I can't help falling in love with you" and I think everybody cried.

But I'll tell you, my favorite part of the whole evening was when Nathan danced with me under the tree. One of his hands was on my back, the other hand holding my own, my cheek pressed against his chest, the sky was starting to get darker, and the moon was huge over the lake. We were talking about silly things, existing in our own little world. I looked just passed Nathan and saw my parents dancing, much the same way we were. And it kind of made me happy for the way things are right now.

How often I find myself caught up in the hecticness of life and I forget to take a step back and be content with where I am now. This life is the only one I've got, it's my only shot down here on Earth and I will be sad if I am one of those old ladies who looks back on her life and only wishes that she'd paid attention to the 'here and now' more often than not.

Consequently, I don't have a lot of photos from the evening because I chose to leave my cell phone in the bridal suite instead of carrying it with me everywhere like a tumor. But it helped me to be living in the moment more, and to enjoy who I was with and where I was and what I was doing. It helped me to be able to focus on talking with my family, pestering Nathan and being there for my brother and sister-in-law.

We sent them off just before ten o'clock and waved good bye as they headed off to their road tripping honeymoon to start their life as adventure buddies forever.

(Also, since I know you're curious, here are some pictures of the wedding I stole from Facebook.)