Postcards from West Chester

After a happily uneventful 875-mile road trip across New York’s I-90, around Cleveland and then down I-71 through middle Ohio, we arrived safely and in good spirits to my hometown of West Chester, Ohio, a mini-metropolis outside Cincinnati where super stores and chain restaurants now outnumber the cows that provided the backdrop of my youth. But some things here will never change, like the free feeling I get cruising up and down the peaks and valleys of Tylersville Road with my windows down and music blasting (special thanks to Rewind 94.9 for playing Gin Blossoms and Joan Jett at the exact right moment for my psyche).

So far, I’d describe our stay as hot. Whether it’s June or August, we always seem to bring with us a string of 90-degree days and humidity. But if it weren’t that way, it wouldn’t feel like home. These are summers I remember—skin always shining with a thin layer of sweat, and huge puffy clouds that drift across blue sky as slowly as glaciers.

Without the beach down the street, the kids will cool off under the sprinkler and in the backyard pool surrounded by spacious sun-speckled green lawns on all sides, and silent swarms of harmless muggy-weather bugs that stick to their skin as they frolic. It’s different in a delicious way, probably because these kinds of days are closer to the summer days I knew growing up. What’s even more fun, though, is coming home and discovering new pockets of nature together.

A couple days ago we scouted out a playground off Yankee Road called Dudley Park, which seemed to be newly rebuilt. From beneath the shade of full grown trees, we hardly noticed the warming day. Friendly waves of wind found us, too, and provided the peace of perfect temperature. It was really only hot in the direct sun at the swings, but the heat gave us a good reason to swing higher and harder to fan ourselves.

It was at that moment—when Henry and I were competing to see who could get high enough to look over the top of the swing-top first—that we noticed the tiny pond hidden by a hill, only yards away. We dragged our heels in the woodchips and came to a halt, then headed over to take a look.

At the edge of the pond we found about twenty dragonflies darting about, eager to include us in their game of hide and seek. Some were midnight black and as big as my fist, with wings so fast they were near invisible; others were the color of sunset and the size of my pinky finger, dancing by with a friendlier flutter and seemingly saying hello. Our favorites, though, were a threesome of iridescent blue and green mid-sized dragonflies that flew in unison as they explored the rocks and tall grass along the bank. We were fearless and so were they and we shared the space together peacefully.

Eventually, Henry bored of the show and tore out a handful of long grass then tossed it into the pond in a heap. Who doesn’t love just ripping out a bunch of grass? The wind on the water combined with the ripple-effect of a manmade current (probably to help prevent scores of mosquitoes) carried the blades in all directions. Henry started pointing out letter shapes he saw in the crisscrosses of grass. This is something I really love about Henry—he’s very visual. He can make connections between shapes and images that astound me. From the time he was two, he was able to see images in things like bathtub bubbles and oil spots in the parking lot—from guitars to car emblems. We had fun trying to find the whole alphabet.

From there, we started talking about what makes things float. Naturally, we got to talking about boats. I challenged him to find things to create a boat without any glue, tape, paper, etc. Between you and me, I was not even sure we could, but it sounded fun to try. We collected tiny pebbles, flowers, grass, sticks, twigs, leaves and more. It took a few attempts before we engineered the perfect boat for this particular pond—made of a giant green leaf and gently bent lightweight twigs. Our tiny boat, manned by a small white flower, made it all the way to the opposite bank before succumbing to the water. We cheered!

Even better was sitting together and watching it all, just snuggled side-by-side in silence, fingers crossed and waiting for the satisfaction of accomplishment. For Henry—and all children—small wins like this are enormously powerful. To him, we conquered something impossible, plus had a great time experimenting. Our trip to The Cone that night was well earned. Here’s hoping for a few more perfect days like this one. Wish you were here!