my one word prompt {7.23}

The pieces are falling into place.

It started with June’s prompt: What do I need from summer? (Instead, I answered What I need to bring to summer is _____.) No matter how I ask it, though, the answer’s the same:

Flex + Flow. (A good faith effort, at least!)

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Elsa

Me

Aahhh….summer.

Easy-breezy. (Often) hot. Loose. Long, free days! Gone is the the structure and rhythm…the framework of school and the rest of the year.

So. Not my easiest season.

I know. I know! It seems so darn embraceable by everyone else that even feeling the way I do — let alone admitting it! — makes me want to quietly exit the room. (Or sit in the pool and have a fit.)

Maybe it’s those very extremes. (Whereas I’m a little more…regulated?) And I’m sure it’s the season of family life I’m in. (Though filled with delights, it challenges me.)

So as the school year wrapped up a in June, I answered my prompt with Flex + Flow. It made good sense to me.

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Something was missing, though.

Even I could feel it.

Flex + Flow is a good and worthy endeavor — YES. (And if I can do it, it will serve us all!) I couldn’t shake it, though. That feeling that something was missing. (Well, the feeling that *I* was missing something.)

I figured it out when I wrote my One Word check-in for Monday:

Magic! That’s it! Little bits of magic.

Nothing monumental. Not great expectations. Just — little bits. Like noticing, really noticing, the golden eyelash moon as I drove home one night. Eating cookie dough with Elsa while watching GBBS on a rainy Tuesday. Four juvenile deer leaping single file through a field on a misty morning. The best Spanish tortilla I’ve made to date. Coming back to love after a hard conversation. Appreciating the lake as it seeps into view when I drive over Mayville hill.

It’s also — and maybe more so — making the magic (when I could otherwise, well, not!). When a friend texted swim laps? after dark, I put on my swimsuit instead of my PJs. It’s committing to choir three days/week (the drive, parking, Chautauqua gate entry hassle…locals know there’s some rigamarole to this!) — for the magic of making music with a remarkable director. It’s celebrating ordinary mid-week meals with my favorite napkins and platters. It’s learning to ask my kids better questions (and listening to the answers).

So, this month. July:

Where’s a little bit of magic?

I’ll find it. Or I’ll make it.

(And who knows…) (Maybe summer’ll grow on me.)

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How about you? What’s bringing little bits of magic to your summer so far?