beautiful disorder

...
Today I looked out the window of my Mom's kitchen while I was washing dishes. The window looks into the front yard, which is more or less a constant struggle against various natural elements trying to restake their claim to this territory. It occurred to me then that about 90% of what I was looking at was stuff that no person had put there, whereas, when I look out into my own yard back home, literally everything that I usually see is there because I put it there. The landscaping, the hardscaping, etc etc. Such a totally different world here.

I like that the chaos here is beautiful and less deadly than the chaos at home. There is little danger of rapid dehydration here (at least with our current weather), and while it's still quite possible to get a nasty sunburn, it would take a lot longer for it to happen. It just seems so mild and benign here near the ocean, whereas back home everything seems so dry and harsh in comparison.

I feel very lucky that I am here and able to have the kids here for this time. It's hard being away from home for a long time,and hard being away from their dad, but this is a very special place. It is so beautiful and unique that I hope they will always look back on these vacations as really wonderful times... heaven forbid they look back on them as "those times Mom dragged us to the Cape"!!!

DS1 had a blast body-surfing the other day, while DS2 played happily in the sand but DD bundled up on the blanket against the wind. I can totally see DS1 going off to college in CA and becoming a surfer dude. He could really fit the swimmer/surfer profile he wanted to... such an excellent swimmer. We have managed to do fun things every day, and I think we're maintaining a good balance of normal routine -- breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime -- and vacation weirdness. Only three days done, though, so we'll see how it goes once everyone is accustomized to the time change. It should get easier from here on out.

This is quite long enough... I hope it survives being published over a dial-up line...