generations

Augustus, Magdalena, Hana

It seems there has been a theme running through my summer travels, and it is that of old friends, reconnections, and second generations. On the big road trip, my children played with the children of my oldest friends, and one new friend. Down in Flagler Beach, the same. And then last week in Amelia Island, once again, I had the distinct joy and pleasure of watching Magdalena and Augustus play with children of dear friends.

Hana, Augustus and Magdalena playing at the brilliant playground/giant sand box at Sliders Restaurant on Fernandina Beach.

Hana and Leo are the children of two of my oldest Jacksonville friends from my post New York days, if you know what I mean. Ahem. Anyhoo, I was Hana's "nanny" when she was a baby. She was the first baby I held for more than a minute. I knew Hana almost like my own. I knew she liked to fall asleep in the Snugli while I vacuumed. I knew she wanted to be in my arms the entire time I was with her. I learned what babies smell like. I learned how babies feel, their skin, their peach fuzz hair. I learned so much from Hana, and also from her mother. Kimmie was a home birth mama, a no-bottle mama, a cloth diaper mama. She and her man Joe had different ideas of a perfect meal, a night at home, and where the t.v. should go, so I should say I also learned from her and Joe that marriage and love and life and family won't always look like a mirror image of single life, just with more people, but a constant give and take. The art of compromise and surrender and, the occasional -oh, that's fine, I don't need to wear a bindi tonight, honey, devil-may-care attitude and optimism.

Augustus and Hana, whom he, by the way, adores

Augustus doing his best flounder interpretation, Magdalena, Leo above, and Hana

Amelia Island is an oasis of entitlement and I felt a spell of "affluenza" trying to take hold while I was there, but I caught it in time with plenty of vitamin C, the mantra that "more is decidedly not better", sheer pleasure and enjoyment of the perfectly imperfect diamond trio in my engagement ring that does not require it's own zip code, the happy realization that I Will Never Be too rich or too thin, because really, if I was, I'd have a nanny and a maid and a cook. Then who would bake bread with my children? Who would roll them in the sheets and play "what's that lump?" while the beds are being made? Who would teach them to fold the cloth napkins?

Those are my blessings. Those are my moments to cherish and remember and get aggravated over in the moment when really what I want to do is actually make the bed, and then lighten up and get with it because these moments of mine, they are only for now.