HOME: the place there’s no place like
Long ago, in the land of Summer 2008, when Kohl’s still sold two-piece bathing suits that had both pieces and when blogging was still high on my To Do list, I started writing a letter to Dorothy of Oz expressing my thoughts on home.

Dear Dorothy,

Remember when you were in Oz and all you could think about was going home?  You made some friends, had some adventures, and saved the world—all while maintaining a rosy glow and locks curled to perfection.  Then with a little click of the heels, you were home.  The End.

But what about the happily ever after part.  Do you ever long for Oz?  As you walk the colorless trails of Kansas, do you dream of the yellow-brick road? Do you wonder how Tin Man is holding up or if those Flying Monkeys have had a change of heart?  Do you miss the smells of the Emerald City or the sounds of the Lollipop Gang?

Probably not.  Because you’re not real and this post is about to get way out of hand if I keep treating you like one of my oldest and dearest of friends…

Fast-forward to present day (cue sweater-weather, school, and a way-too-early Season’s Greetings from Hobby Lobby).  If I were to finish my sentiments toward Dorothy, much crying would commence accompanied by a thorough expedia search of one-way flights to Bamako.  Between the lines, wink wink, this is really about me.  About how I’m not completely satisfied in either worlds—my carpeted Wal-Marting America or my dusty horn-honking Mali.  So I shift between residing in the regretful land of If Only and the hopeful zip code of Happily Ever After.  Because that’s what you do when you fall in love with your home(s).  Just ask Dorothy, I’m sure she’d agree.

FAILURE: what I am.
Dear blog,
Please forgive me.  It has been 37 days since my last post.  I have failed you.

Whew, glad that’s out of the way.  I hate confrontation.

So, SUMMER what?  Just a distant memory.  You’ve packed up your Old Navy Bermuda shorts.  Changed that beachy landscaped facebook picture.  And forgotten what it’s like for the sun to be out at 9pm.

But I’m still holding on.  Because I never stop something that I’ve started—thank you Dad.  In a very abbreviated format–the kind you’d write if you knew it were just a completion grade–I give you the rest of the Encyclopedia of Summer: Volumes H-Z.  Daily posts are promised until the calendar changes to November and all sweet summery memories are replaced by pumpkins, touchdowns, hoodies, and Charlie Brown.

Your flip-flop wearing failure,
–A

Come in, come in! Get out of the rain and sit for a spell, dear friend.

It’s no secret, May. You are my favorite month. Most people think I favor you because you have the privilege of hosting my birthday. (Everyone’s favorite month is their birthday month, right?) But you mean so much more to me, beloved May. You always have.

One Sunday morning in May, I woke up before my mother—which had happened only one other time (post-infancy) when I got up at exactly 5:30 to participate in our first garage sale. Armed with price stickers and my moneybox, I waited by the garage door for my parents until 6:00. However, this time I was rising before dawn to make my mother coffee. It was Mother’s Day, and I was too old to make another Coupon Book of Free Chores yet too young to buy her perfume from the mall. So her usual cup of coffee—prepared by her favorite daughter—would have to suffice. Inexperienced in the ways of coffee making, I called my Mimi. Mimi and Papa boasted as many coffee cups as they did trucker hats. And mysteriously to me, they took their second pot in the afternoon? Groggy but ever the picturesque grandma, Mimi congratulated my aspiring coffee connoisseurship and guided me through each step until the kitchen’s scent was so perfect I was certain Mom would catch a whiff and jump out of bed singing, “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

In e-mailing with Mom today to see what she remembers of that particular Mother’s Day (I’ve pulled off so many spectacular ones, I wasn’t sure if she’d recall the Year of the World’s Best Coffee), she wrote, “It was good!!” That’s right, two exclamations points.

It’s been well over twelve years, and I haven’t made my dear mother a cup of coffee since that Sunday. Even so, there have been many popsicle stick picture frames, silk flower corsages—one that is still worn annually—and other random macaroni knickknacks that embody all things Mom…and all things May.

The month of May also hands every hard working student a gift of a single day when they must go to school, but they don’t really do school. As elementary kids it was Track and Field Day or Super Kids Day as my school called it. You spent the entire day outside playing games, eating Blue Bell vanilla ice cream with a wooden bowtie stick, and watching a movie if you were lucky.

In middle school it was Yearbook Signing Day. Lining up alphabetically by last name as the yearbook staff frantically unloaded box after box of yearbooks, you were soon filling in autograph pages with long letters to your BFF’s, and to the less familiar, cute pleasantries like What a Year!!! and Stay Sweet

High school’s blow off day was more like an entire week, appropriately named Dead Week, as we crammed for finals, interviewed for summer jobs, and said goodbyes all in a zombie-like trance. And then May delivered the ultimate gift: the cap and gown, the walk across the stage, the diploma (which will be mailed to you pending the return of the books you still owe the library), and the melancholy appreciation that you made it to the end. It also hits you that May will never again hand you a day that feels like that…at least not for another 4 years.

It’s not just what you give me, May. It’s what you symbolize. As a teacher-for-life, I’ll always know you as the one month that draws another long school year to a close and opens up another hopeful summer. You aren’t complete without several viewings of Dirty Dancing followed by dreams of summer romance. You usher in a season of driving with the windows down, working in the flowerbed, shopping for shorts and tank tops and flip-flops. Pedicures, pool parties, and proms. You entertain pastel weddings, Memorial Day trips to the lake, and evening baseball games. The Siloam Springs Dogwood Festival and Broken Arrow Rooster Days. And for me, an especially fabulous festivity. Cake and party hats required.

If your remaining 29 days are at all like your first two…a lazy Labor Day at a hotel pool, eating up another volume of Christy Miller with a side order of the Rabelais’s finest chocolate ice cream, teaching the final chapters of Mockingbird—anxiously watching their faces as Boo comes into the light, reading Japanese folktales with very silly 6th grade boys, baking chocolate-chocolate-chip cookies while browsing registries for this summer’s weddings, and a little bit of letter writing before bed…Ah, then May, I invite you to make yourself at home. Your company is always quite welcome. And it’s about time you showed up.

Fondly,

Amber