The Should Conundrum
Lately, my mind’s been plagued with shoulds.
I should be writing more.
I should stay inside and be productive. I should be outside; I should soak up every minute of summer. I should have written something by now. I should clean, I should sort, prepare meals, weed the garden, defrost the fridge, ride my bike, take photos, swim, take more photos, post, blog, share. I should, I should, I should.
It’s a constant mental tug of war. My mind jumps through hoops to remind me of all the ways I’m falling short. Not quite living fully and not quite reflecting publicly. From guilt for not writing about summer to guilt for not living summer.
Perhaps that’s why childhood summers have been on my mind so much. Back then, there were no shoulds. Or, maybe if there were, they were drowned out by laughter at the lake, shrieks during epic kick the can games, and the sounds of my brothers and cousins racing through the trees. Everything just was.
I loved everything about my family trips to visit my grandma every summer. We’d stuff our red van full to the brim. Camping gear, our dog, food, four kids, my parents. Sometimes even our cat came. The drive was long. At first, it was slow going. The roads were congested as we made our way through Vancouver, and then the suburbs. But after an hour or two, I’d watch the wide-open fields fly by, and then the road wound its way into the mountains. A quarter of the way into the drive, my mum would hand my three brothers and me a packet of snacks and activities. My favourite was the sticker book. I’d see sticker books like it every time I was at the grocery store check-out. I knew they were a special treat – one we only got once a year on our way to Grootje’s.
The last stop before Grootje’s was the ferry, a little cable propelled barge that brought us across Arrow Lake to her hobby farm in the woods. While we waited to cross the lake, we’d pile out of the car, feeling the quintessential central B.C. dry summer heat. We were almost there, the excitement and fatigue mixed together to create a feeling I still recall all these years later.
Grootje hadn’t always lived there. She’d grown up in the Netherlands and moved to Calgary, Alberta when she was newlywed. But she was drawn to rural life. To a life with animals in the forest. I didn’t realise back then just how strongly I would relate to this later in my life. When Grootje’s four children were grown and she was no longer married, she’d moved to the Kootenays, to a small community of a few hundred widely scattered residents. The rejection of urban life. I get that now.
Summers at Grootje’s meant sleeping in a tent, cooking over a campfire, baseball, soccer and kick the can, swimming in the lake until our entire bodies were prune-like. We helped Grootje feed her animals – the sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys (I was petrified of them), the horse, the donkey, the cow, and if we were lucky, a calf, too. Sometimes we’d go into Grootje’s house, sit by the fire and pick a book to read from the rows and rows of kid’s books she had. Or she’d read to us. Or make us a hot chocolate.
By the end of our stay at Grootje’s, my brothers and I had sun-bleached hair, tanned skin, and clothes that smelled of campfires. We had scrapes and bruises from non-stop play and heaps of memories to cherish. That, for me, was what summer was about.
When my brothers and I got older, we didn’t go to Grootjes as frequently, and when we did go, it wasn’t for as long. We had sports training camps or summer jobs, responsibilities and friends. But we still tried to pack the summer fun to which we were accustomed into whatever time we had. In the summer between grade 8 and 9, I got a job. I wanted to make money, but I also lamented that I’d miss summer. As soon as my shifts were over, I’d take the bus to the beach, and when the bakery closed for two weeks as it did every summer, for two weeks, I lived outside, spending the days in the sand or biking with friends, and coming home with hair knotted from the wind and dried from the salt water. One summer I moved my bed outside. I just had to soak in all of summer.
There’s something so very significant about our childhood summers and I think that feeling lingers. For children, summers mean freedom and their end means an end of that freedom and the beginning of the restriction of school. Months and months of sitting in a desk dreaming of carefree unscheduled days. No wonder we feel the urgency to experience summer to its fullest as adults. It’s been ingrained in us!
Summers in the Yukon remind me, acutely, of my childhood summers. My first summer in the Yukon, I was struck by the similarities between summer in this tiny community and summers at Grootje’s. The smells were similar. The sounds were similar. The energy was even similar. Slow but full days. And in the Yukon, summers mean the sun barely sets. Every hour is taken advantage of, and if it isn’t, there is a deep guilt that accompanies it. Just like the childhood anticipation (and dread in my case) of a new school year, so too is the anticipation of winter here. There’s the recognition that the long days ought to be enjoyed because darkness, cold, and snow will soon be here, and will stick around for a long, long time.
I’ve been feeling that sense of urgency. The need to take advantage of every single part of every single day. To be outside, to be in nature, to do, to experience. All these things are good, definitely. I recognize this, and yet I feel guilty for all the things I should do but neglect when summer comes. This newsletter, for example. I’ve been telling myself for months that I must put out a newsletter. I’ve had ideas and moments of inspiration and excitement, and yet, I haven’t taken action.
Summers make procrastination of certain mundane tasks easy. Guests coming, a scheduled hike, and beautiful day, the fact that the light won’t be here long it easy to put off writing. I’ll do the inside stuff tomorrow. I’ll do it on the next rainy day. I do it when we’re back from camping. But then, tomorrow comes and something beckons me outside. I go outside, because I should be outside. I should make the most of this fleeting season and live the life I moved here for.
And there’s the thing: when I’m inside, I tell myself I should be outside. When I’m outside, I tell myself I should be inside.
Most days it feels like there’s no solution. No matter what I’m doing, I feel I ought to be doing something else.
I wrote that last sentence and then I paused. Because it’s not really true, is it. True is that I know what I’m doing when I’m wandering the woods or lying in the moss watching the sky is being. True is that I love that feeling. And also true is that I love to share that feeling. Writing this—I love this feeling. So I guess the answer is that I stop saying “should” and just appreciate where I am when I am there: at a desk, on my bike. It’s all good. Being present. That’s what it takes. And the important tasks will get done. And the not-so-important tasks? Well, they’re just that: not-so-important.
Maybe I’ll get there one day, but right now it’s still the case that summer, beautiful and wonderful as it is, holds with it that tiny dreadful school-age knowledge that soon it will be over.