As this monthslong, twisted summer winds to a close I’m getting ready for online schooling, or at least trying to. The information changes weekly and I don’t even know for sure what day I’m starting school or what my courses will be. I still can’t quite believe that I won’t be back in the building like normal next week, taking the classes I’d most looked forward to since middle school like Film and Video, or preparing to direct the grade 7-12 musical. Some of my friends are returning to school and some are going online but we’re hoping we’ll be able to meet up safely and work on assignments together. I have been able to see my friends a lot more than at the start of all this. We went to Stewart Park the other week and clambered across the rocks in the canal to reach the small island there. We mostly sat quietly, reading or writing, and it felt very normal and comforting even though we were sitting apart.
Something that didn’t have to change this summer was our annual camping trip. The parks are open, with increased cleaning and no shower access (yep…), so we went to Silver Lake for four nights. Throughout setting up in sweltering humidity we’d been looking forward to heading down to the beach, but when we finished hoisting our tarp up it was just in time for the rain.
Thankfully the skies cleared up around sunset so we had a beautiful swim at the beach with almost no other people there. We had one or two more beautiful days of swimming and relaxing in my hammock before the rain really hit. There were puddles in the tent, it was freezing, all the bugs emerged into the shelter of our campsite…but this meant we just got to cozy up in the tent and play board games.
First was Star Wars Battleships, then Trouble which we had to move outside to the picnic table when it got so intense that we were knocking the pieces off the board. After a harrowing card game of War that went on for ages, the rain let up enough for my sister and I to go on a walk all around the campground, nodding sympathetically at everyone else who’d persevered through the downpour.
Now that I’m back from the wilderness it’s back to waiting for news on school this year, but I’m striving to enjoy my last weeks of summer now that things are open and safety measures are almost second-nature by now.
