What You Bring Back

I am writing this from a beach chair in Cannes.

It’s early morning, at least for this part of the world. The gorgeous blues and teals of the Mediterranean spreading out in front of me. The heat and light, and that particular quality of stillness that exists only early in the morning before the world remembers it has things to do. I am not checking anything. I am not planning anything. I am just sitting here, soaking it all in, flicking away the voice telling me I have only a few days left of this break from reality.

This is what I came for.

Not the view, though the view is extraordinary. The stillness. The permission to simply be somewhere without needing to produce anything from it. These past few weeks have held so much. Hugging Grace for the first time in a month in the village where she is studying, a place called Lacoste that is so beautiful it almost doesn’t seem real. Long dinners that stretched way past dark because no one wanted to stop laughing. A lazy afternoon at a vineyard with wine and nowhere to be. All six of us, together, moving at a pace that felt like breathing. Connecting and getting to know our new layers.

Our trip will end with two days in London, just Steve and me. (Connor, Isabelle, and Rowan have to return to jobs and reality). It will be quiet and unhurried in the way that only happens when it is just the two of us and the whole city is ours to wander.

I am bringing so much home from this trip - fun souvenirs and wine and cute finds from Provencal markets. But even more meaningful to me are the memories and a more settled version of myself. Happiness that isn’t performed. Rest that actually occurred and settled in a place deep in my soul. Clarity that only comes when you stop long enough to let things sort themselves out. Patience. Perspective. A groundedness that I can already feel is going to carry me a long way into fall.

That is what real rest does. It doesn’t just recharge you. It returns you to yourself.

So, before I get on the plane home, I want to ask you something.

What are you bringing back from this summer?

Not what you accomplished or checked off your list.

What shifted in you, even slightly, between the beginning of June and now? What do you understand about your kid(s) that you didn’t before? What do you understand about yourself?

Maybe you had a conversation you’d been avoiding, and it went better than you expected. (I did that!) Maybe you let your kid try something that made you uncomfortable and watched them come alive a little. Maybe you caught yourself steering and chose to stop. Maybe you just paid closer attention than usual. Noticed more and assumed less.

Those things count. They are the work. And the work doesn’t always announce itself. It accumulates quietly, in ordinary moments, until one day you look up and realize something has changed.

I don’t want you to walk into September without stopping to name what this summer gave you. Even if it was hard. Especially if it was hard. What you bring back from an eventful, alive summer is often the most important thing you carry.

So take a minute. Before the school year noise starts up again. Before the calendar fills and the chaotic pace returns and summer becomes something you’re already looking back on.

Ask yourself what you’re bringing back. Write it down if you can. Say it out loud to someone you trust. Let yourself feel it in your soul.

I know that when I get home, Mackenzie will be waiting at the door with wiggles and kisses and the kind of welcome that will make me wonder how I ever left. The particular magic of being greeted like you’ve been gone a decade when it’s only been two and a half weeks.

That is what coming home feels like when you’ve actually been away. When you let yourself go fully enough that coming back means something.

I hope your summer gave you that, and I hope you’re bringing something real back with you.

Keep becoming more human and more kind.