My 20 year old, English niece has been living with us since the Bar Mitzvah and just went home tonight. Having her female energy invade this all-boy household was seriously divine. She is not only gorgeous but everything you would want a young woman to be: happy, spirited, caring and positive. Her giggles are infectious and I now know every detail about every single one of her best best friends – and there are a few – as I was living side by side with every BBM update.
Last night we watched a movie and she was covered in my boys -they couldn’t sit close enough and little one actually slept in her bed. One of my sons pleaded with her not to go as ‘now mom is going to want to talk to us too much again!’ I laughed so hard at the truth behind the difference between boys and girls, women and men; we girls love to analyze and find the meat and potatoes out of the situation and those boys, well, they just like to eat meat.
I have booked our tickets back to London and have started booking play dates over there for the summer. The unforgiving irony in all of it is that Husband needs to be here all summer. Of course he does!! Isn’t it painfully reassuring to know that he was able to translate his working life to LA which would keep him here, whilst we go there! He wanted to know why, in fact, do we need to travel back for the summer when most of that time we will be apart, again? It’s a tricky one because although I can deal well on my own with the boys – because I’m the one who gets to be with the boys – I need him more and more for my own zen rhythm.
However, this life we all lead was fought for properly; compromises were made, financial commitments that can be painful at times in order to keep two lives operating fully, two sets of friends that define our happiness, two families that make life blessed. So therefore, says the wife whole-heartedly, time is needed for both. Amazing how I am the one holding forth on time needed in London to Husband who used to pine for Blighty. That is a good thing, a godsend. A reality check that he too can be happy and fulfilled in both places.
I tell people here that we are going back to London and they say ‘Oh how wonderful.’ Then I tell them that we’ll be gone for six weeks and the looks on their faces is confusion mixed with awe. ‘Wow, six weeks, that is sooooo long.’ In America people never ever go away that long. In Europe, it’s not only the privileged few that decide to take a villa, or whatever, for the whole month of August. It’s a different mentality especially when summer means escaping to reliable sunshine. That and the fact that in America you getbtwo weeks paid holiday and in England it’s a minimum of four.
It’s my first summer solstice here in such a long time. In LA June gloom settles into the weather patterns so the summer season is not so pronounced. In London, it’s either very wet or very hot but summer is met with a million and one flowers popping up from strange places in your garden and, of course, the sound of tennis balls on hard, green grass…Wimbledon.
I remember realizing a few years back that I could actually watch Wimbledon from lunchtime everyday, not just the highlights on the evening news. As a tennis player, I’ve admired this tournament and event more than any other. The tradition, the pomp and ceremony, the sense of occasion; it’s convincingly the best. Nothing globally comes close to its elegance and you only have to look at Federer’s white suit that he rips off before warm ups to prove the point.
So, London’s summer begins with Ascot and Wimbledon and LA’s summer begins with the big, hot movie block busters! Don’t knock it, my boys couldn’t be more thrilled.
