On Having a Nineties Summer

It wasn't by choice, Now? I'm embracing it.

Photo by Jochen van Wylick on Unsplash

Have you seen this push lately (among mostly parenting influencers) to give kids a “nineties summer” — the kind we had, the generation now raising kids of our own? The nostalgia for a simpler time. Admittedly, I’m usually not into sanitized day dreaming about some idealized past. But this? This I can get into.

Growing up, our family didn’t have the budget for an expensive vacation every year. But my sister and I had time. Long, unstructured, totally free, unfettered time.

When we were young, when it was just our mom and us, we lived in a dumpy duplex beside corn fields you could sneak into through a torn-out hole in the chain-link fence that separated our parking lot from the rows. My friends (other neighborhood kids) and I would slip through and sit among the stalks, the scent of husks and sea salt heavy in the warm summer breeze.

We skated in the carports, connecting the oil-stain dots left by absent cars, lapping luxurious loops around and around, talking loud and fast, our voices echoing off the cement walls of each vacant, tin-roofed cube.

We ate baby tomatoes and peppers straight off the stoop gardens of the other duplexes as we passed, free to pick and snack as we went. Our mothers (and it was mostly mothers, in all of our households) were friendly with each other, friends even, usually home only one at any given moment while the others worked staggered shifts.

When we were older, our mom became a teacher. So, she had summers off, too. And we, my sister, mom, and I, sunbathed at the beach. We piled our arms full of library books and read them sprawled across the couch. We slept in. We had long, blabbing conversations with friends on the landline and roamed the neighborhood for hours. We helped our mom set up her classroom. Long afternoons, doing endless linocut letters and shapes (iykyk.)

Summer on a budget at our house this year means no family trip. Lucas just got a new job (thank the lord) so a family vacation, even somewhere local, is off the table this year.

But, I am still taking some time off for the next few weeks. Time that will be spent at home or very close to it, and I’ve been thinking about those summers.

Those summers were the freest I have ever been.

Lately I’ve been really wrestling with the concept of consent and its relationship to freedom because we as a society, as a country, do not get what it is. Like at the most basic level.

What is consent?

Consent is voluntary agreement to an action. It requires that all parties be mentally competent, fully informed of what they are agreeing to, and act freely without pressure, force, or coercion.

Increasingly, I’m looking around and hearing this language of “don’t fight it, it’s inevitable” about so many of the horrific things happening in our world. And I’m not the first to point out: That’s coercion. That’s attempted force. That’s not how consent works. If you know your history, you know: that’s been the language of colonizers and capitalists forever.

The people in power want you to believe your choices are impermeable and everlasting. Had an unplanned baby? Your fault. No one owes you anything. Crossed a border without permission? Expect family separation and a life of slave labor when you’re “caught”. Went to college? You’ll be paying that off forever. Didn’t go? Don’t expect to be paid much. You “asked for it.”

This year made me realize just how powerless we are. We did everything we thought we were supposed to do to be “safe” and “successful.” And still, after Lucas lost his job this fall, I lay awake racking my brain until the early hours of the morning many nights stressed about our circumstances.

My nervous system has been on high alert for less than a year, and it’s wrecked my sleep. I’ve gained weight; my hair is graying quickly. My teeth have been constantly aching, and I’ve realized: I’m grinding them in my sleep.

I felt it creeping into celebrations for my daughter, into her simple requests for basic necessities for her dorm room next year. I didn’t want a fraught relationship with her, but that’s what happens when you have to say no over and over again, and your shame keeps you from explaining that you’re saying no because you don’t have the option to say yes.

And what we experienced was actually not that dramatic or that serious. We still had savings to fall back on. I was employed while he was looking. So many people are living on a knife’s edge. Some people don’t have the option to wait for a “good” job — they must take what they can get, and every adjustment in the price of gas and food is an earth-shattering decision happening to them, at them, in ways they have no control over.

That’s what I’ve lost and learned this year: that you can feel stable and happy and like you’re so good at partnering and parenting. You can feel like you’re making a difference in the world by fighting back and showing up to all the right things and giving what you can, but actually — you’re just fucking lucky. That’s it.

So, here we are. We’re out of unemployment purgatory for now. (Hallelujah!) The winds and our luck have shifted.

As a very busy season at work for me winds down, I’m taking a few weeks off of work and planning a mini staycation. And I’m thinking about those nineties summers and I’m doing what I can to recreate them: roaming my immediate surroundings with no real agenda, happy to greet the day and the people I love. Feasting on nature’s bounties — clear skies, warm breezes, fresh fruit and vegetables from our garden, long luxurious walks in loops around the neighborhood, dips in the lake, unstructured gab sessions with friends.

To choose, really choose, anything we have to have all the necessities of living. Without them, none of us really has the choices we think we do. When we are desperate, worn out, terrified, reactive, biased — we aren’t actually free from pressure, force, or coercion.

We are living through a time where most of us don’t get to choose much about our circumstances or our access to the resources we need to live joyful, healthy, peaceful lives.

We are living in a time where, because of that, increasing numbers of people are easy to manipulate or force into lives and a society we do not want and did not actively choose, because we’re scared, angry, and desperate.

But the good news is that when we are aware of that reality, we can work to change it. We can choose something different. It doesn’t have as much power over us as we think it does.

The next few weeks, I’m taking the time to rest, play, and find joy in the everyday things going on all around me in my life.

I believe that rest, play, and moments of joy help me (and all of us) to know what I’m fighting for as a creator, an activist, a parent, a partner, and a community member.

I hope you have a moment this summer for that, too.

What I’m reading/watching/thinking about/listening to:

Tell me: What simple things are you doing this summer to rest, play, and find joy?

The Bluest Eye | Toni Morrison

I’ve declared it “Summer of Morrison” over at my house. So, I’m reading all of Toni Morrison’s works this summer. (Wanna join me?) I read “The Bluest Eye” this past week and tore through it. No one writes like Morrison.

I recruited a friend to join me in “Summer of Morrison” and she sent me this list of Morrison’s works in historical order. It’s fascinating! So, now, we’ll be reading her books in that order.

I’ll let you know what I’ve read by the time my mini staycation ends and report back all I’m learning.

DeBí TiRAR Más FOToS | Bad Bunny

I know. It’s over a year old. And still, Bad Bunny, and DTMF is the music of summer. I’ve been listening to it again on repeat, windows down.

Is God Is

It’s funny, it’s quirky, it’s suspenseful as hell. And still, this movie crushed me. Twins who are, really, sides of ourselves after we suffer an injustice. What decisions are our own? And what decisions do we make to please, appease, and avenge others?

The Bride

Is it possible to be disfigured and not want to murder people? Hollywood isn’t sure right now. So, this film is another revenge plot. And yet, watching Jessie Buckley act in pretty much anything is worth your time.

Also: Damn, do we have a lot to work out as a society about consent. I will be writing so much more about this subject in the coming weeks.

What about you? What are you reading/watching/thinking about/listening to? I’d love to know.

New here?

Every week I share personal reflections, takes on pop culture and current events, and deep dives into U.S. history.

I’ve got four teens, some animals, live in the woods and have a demanding (but fulfilling!) job. And you’ve got well… *gestures at your equally full and hectic and wild and precious life.*

So, I know it isn’t a small ask to ask you to join me here. Still, I’m humbly asking that you do.

NGL, you will be pushed… but never punished. This is a space for learning out loud. For taking steps toward change in your personal and communal life that matter. Because when you know better you do actually have to do better.

But you can do this. We must, together. LFG.

With love — always,