This year, I did much the same as I've done for the last few - took the kids swimming in rivers and seas and guided French teenage girls out of their Gallic conservatism and into their wild imagination through creative writing walks where forests were red with blood and murderers lurked behind trees. The difference was that this time, there were no balls in the air. Juggling, I have decided, is for mothers who worry too much. And while before, I worried that they all might be, at varying times, hungry, bored, over stimulated, under stimulated, cold, homesick, pissed off, this time I let them be. And of course they weren't. Too rich to swim in rivers? I don't think so.
Brain noise; the shoulds, supposed tos and why aren't Is? that had me in a vice of guilt simply vanished into a gentle flowing river or a wave surfed by dogs and kids. Did I write less? No. Did I achieve less? Did I earn less? Actually, no. But did I enjoy myself more, read more, discover the magic of being in control of my own angst? God, yes. Roll on next summer...
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