by Sara Barry | Sep 1, 2014 | canning, summer, what I love
Right now I’m loving tomato and peach season. 
I love making salsa, more salsa, bbq sauce, jam.
I love the ping of a canning jar sealing and standing and stirring in the steamy kitchen.
I love the golden color of peaches cooking down and the tumble of red-yellow-green of tomato-peach-peppers in the salsa pot.
I love eating ice cream (or chips and salsa) at the end of the day and picturing hot toast slathered with golden jam on a cold morning.
And I love looking at all the jars—adding these orange-reds and yellow- golds to the greens and berry reds and purple-blues—filling my shelves, proof that I have done something with all these summer hours.
What are you loving right now?
by Sara Barry | Aug 27, 2014 | parenting, summer, writing
Brian looked up, our little red head in his lap. My suddenly taller, more long-legged girl at the end of the bench. I was across the picnic table in the sudden quiet after his stove was turned off. It was one of those moments where everything froze for a second, and I was aware of the fullness of what is and what was.
We were camping, our second camping trip with the girls. Our first one with the dog. We were camping on hardpack dirt with a picnic table to sit at, our own personal bear box, and the car just feet away. It is the kind of camping Brian used to scoff at. It’s the kind of camping we can manage right now.
My children look feral after only two days here—hair unbrushed, faces smeared with dirt and chocolate, clothes rumpled and dirty. They look happy too, despite the squabbles over colored pencils while we cooked breakfast. They’ve made fairy houses and walked across fallen logs. They’ve hiked dirt roads and well worn trails with walking sticks they found trailside. The little one adopted the nickname Mountain Sally. Whatever it takes to get through a hike.
Brian and I used to hike a lot more. Our first date was lunch and a hike. He proposed on a backpacking trip, up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He was a backpacker long before I knew him, completing the AT a decade before we got married. On our first trip, I had a borrowed pack and boots, nothing fit quite right. By the second trip, I was breaking in my own boots and my own packs, learning its pockets and straps, fitting it to me.
We hiked at different paces. He’d outstrip me on the uphills. Downhills too, but give me flat ground—especially heading out of the woods toward a good meal, and I’d win hands down. I miss those days of long walks, hard work, hiking our own hike, catching up with each other throughout the day and then at night when we settled in to make camp. The stove would fill the evening with its loud static and the smell of gas at first. Then we’d sit in quiet, mugs of cocoa warming us, dinner right out of the pan. We’d start the morning the same way, oatmeal tasting slightly of chili or whatever we’d eaten the night before.
Brian had his own systems when he backpacked solo or with different friends. We had to figure out how to work together—who carried what, dividing up camp chores—but we got into a rhythm.
We’re still finding a rhythm with this car camping thing. Our neighbors had bacon sizzling. The people we met at the beach had kebabs with steak and chicken and bacon. We had oatmeal, hotdogs. The car is a tangle of overflowing bags. I packed too many clothes.
But we had s’mores. We visited the nature center, observed small yellow and red newts navigating the roots and leaves underfoot. We sat on a big rock on the edge of a field and watched bats swooping in the gathering dusk.
We are getting our kids used to the woods, to sleeping in a tent, to walking on rough terrain. Someday, we’ll go deeper into the woods, away from where our car can carry all our stuff. I think of it as a return to what we used to do, but really, I know, it will be different with four of us. We’ll need to learn new systems, figure out how to adapt to our different paces.
I love being in the woods and seeing my kids loving it too.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
Start with a moment that has stuck with you. Tap into your senses as you describe it. Do you know why it has stuck with you? Keep writing.
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments, add a link to your blog, or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com.
Write with me Wednesdays—and three days in September. Sign up now.
by Sara Barry | Aug 25, 2014 | finding time, garden, summer, what I love, writing
- My early morning quiet time with coffee and my writing notebook
- This post about another writer’s mornings
- The height and color in my garden
- The canning cupboard shelves filling up
- Space I’ve cleared (bye-bye clutter—it’s a slow process)
- An abundance of hot peppers—stuff them with a mixture of cream cheese, cheddar, and a spicy sausage and bake until the cheese is good and melty.
- Notes and writing from friends with details about moments they will remember and the texture of their days.
What are you loving in these last days of August?
by Sara Barry | Aug 22, 2014 | kids in the garden, summer, writing
When I flip through my pictures from the summer, I’ll remember picking blueberries, but I might forget how the five-year-old took charge of the three-year-old and two-year-old and how much easier it was in 2014 than it was in 2013. I’ll see it was sunny, but I might not remember how foggy and cool it was that morning when we set out through the hills and back roads. I might forget the singing of rounds that paced our work as we sorted and how I sang the songs over and over, teaching the girls and making up my own verses to “Hey Ho, Nobody Home” in the car until they begged me to stop. One of the reasons I write is to remember.
This is my picture, my story. What’s yours?
Ready to start telling your story? Download your quick guide to summer stories now.
by Sara Barry | Aug 20, 2014 | parenting, summer, writing
It is not a great photo. I snapped it a few seconds too late, I see the tops of heads, red hair and blond flowing toward the lush, green grass as they bend at the waist. It’s not a great picture, but I know that they are mid-bow.
“We’re doing a show! Come watch! Are you coming? The show’s starting.”
This summer was the summer of shows. There have been music shows and dancing shows, hula hoop shows and acrobatic shows (like the one they’ve just wrapped up in the picture that involved the crocodile see saw). The dancing shows usually have costumes: the purple and teal fairy costume or the polka dot tulle dress or the shell pink ballerina skirt leotard from the dress up box. The music shows feature instruments—always a drum—and self-written songs. I’ve watched them march and arabesque, twirl and leap, inside and out, morning or night.
They announce each other—“And now the most amazing dancer ever”—in deep, dramatic stage voices, and tell each other what to do in not so quiet stage whispers, “Now you come in. Now. Dance!”
And before I’m invited to watch the show, I hear the rehearsals, which sometimes turn into squabbles as they each fight for their own vision.
I remember watching our neighbors do shows just a couple of years ago. They’d want my girls to be in the them, and sometimes my girls were up for it. Even when they were, at one or two or three didn’t take direction so well. They crawled off stage or wouldn’t say lines or wanted to play instead. Now, this summer, my girls are directing. This summer, they’re the stars.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
Choose a picture and tell your story. Draw from your memory or your imagination.
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments, add a link to your blog, or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com.
Get more ideas for using your photos for writing—Summer Stories in 5 Minutes.
