Writers tell stories by defining their fictional world: creating boundaries, characters, and situations that sustain the reader’s fictional dream. As I continue my progression through motherhood, I’m finding that writers aren’t the only ones who need to define their world. It’s simply human nature (duh, right?).

I’m a Beth-of-all-trades, but I am unique so accept no substitution. Nothing bothers me more than to be stripped down to one word: Homemaker (cringe!). Creative. Mother. Liberal. Conservative. Organized. Handy. Nutcase. I am all of those things and many more, some contradictory, many surprising. I suspect I am not alone in being so complex, but I do believe that many people never let that complexity into the light of day.

Characters are complex, too (or should be if you’re a good writer). But as I mine my memory for bits of me to loan my characters, I’ve discovered that in my head I am a fictional character. Some of my happiest times, and some of the worst, have been automatically fictionalized in my brain, and I can no longer separate fact from fiction. I have the urge to track down the other players on my stage and ask them for the truth. In the end I suppose it doesn’t matter. Nothing I write will be as blatently authentic as what this writer tried to pass off as fiction.

The other day I was telling some new friends about people I’d reconnected with on Facebook. Just about everyone said they didn’t get the whole Facebook concept and avoided it. I was at a loss to explain why I did like it so much (see how writer fits me so much better than debater?). In the days following that conversation, I came to understand what I really value about Facebook and old friends. It’s the instant renewal of intimacy, the feeling of picking up where you last left that makes it a much better means of communication than e-mail or even face-to-face reunions (Think about your last class reunion: fumbling hugs, awkward pauses, lots of small talk starting with “So…”?). But on Facebook, I can avoid all the obligatory how’ve-you-beens and here’s-what-I’m-doing-now and go straight to the message: Here’s something I know you’d like, because we used to jump on your bed in our flannel nightgowns and I know you hate mayonnaise on your sandwiches and you watched me cry when my parents fought. Forget about why I wasn’t invited to your wedding, forget that you haven’t heard from me in ages, forget that we have nothing in common any more. Here’s a part of you that you thought you had lost or buried or forced to grow up. It never left you. You are everything you ever were plus everything you are now. And sometimes it’s worth a reminder.

My big red minivan’s in the shop. Turns out there are some drivers who can’t see the big red minivan parked in the street. I have a name for these drivers, but that’s not important.

The rental car company didn’t have the minivan I’d reserved. Like the Seinfeld episode, they can take the reservation, they just can’t hold the reservation. But that’s not important.

I’m now driving a Dodge Durango until my van is repaired. I’ve never driven an SUV. A full sized pickup truck, yes (don’t forget I lived in Kansas for 7 years), but an SUV, no. What a useless piece of shit. I’ve fallen out of it twice (no running boards to ease the transition on this particular trim package), and I darn near need a boost to get inside the thing (again, no running boards). The kids are crammed into it, and the Sam’s run last night barely fit into the back. For being so big, there’s very little usable space. Plus every time I get into it I half expect to see Jack Bauer and his backpack hanging from the rear axle (“Dammit, there’s a bomb!”).

I honestly don’t understand why average people need SUVs. Unless you’re towing something (hauling ass doesn’t count) in addition to a car full of people, then there are more practical choices available. Hauling wood? Get a truck. Carting people? Get a van. Carrying a big ego? Get a Lexus.

I can’t wait to get my van back. I’m going to rub it with a cloth diaper and never park it in the street again.

Jake and Anna are learning to write. Jake’s more advanced after a year in school where he learned punctuation in addition to basic letter formation. Anyway, I bought some elementary writing tablets at Target and they’ve been happily writing words and notes. Jake’s even written a “story” or two.

But as Jake was struggling yesterday to sound out a word and its corresponding letters, I thought about my first attempts at writing. I have no idea when I learned to write my letters (most likely kindergarten, I suppose), but I clearly recall chicken scratching on paper then “reading” what I wrote back to whoever would listen. I remember the overwhelming frustration that I couldn’t really write what I wanted to say, so I had to rely on my memory. And with each reading the story changed until I could no longer remember what I intended to say at all.

It’s easy to forget that frustration, the type that bewilders and crushes. If you don’t remember it, try writing a story. Now write it in Spanish or French or whatever you took for two years back in high school. Does it read the way you wanted, or are you relying on chicken scratches and your aging memory?

School starts on Monday. Summer is almost over.

The kids are very excited to be going back to school, and I’m excited to have them there as well. Yet I still have a small feeling of sadness that I get every year at this time, even though my school days are long gone. Summer is a season of promises, endless possibilities, freedom, youth, love and beauty. The three months zoom by then toss you against the dark backdrop of 9 long months of rigid schedules, responsibility and unreliable weather. That’s when you look back at summer and see the promises unfulfilled, the opportunities missed. The kids are too young to experience end-of-summer blues in this way, and as for myself, nowadays my summer regrets are limited to not playing catch with Jake as often as I wanted. Promises unfulfilled? Well, there is that hanging basket of impatiens that I keep forgetting to water.

What made me reminisce about days gone by, when I would spend September and October holed up in my room writing lists about everything I missed about summer, is a column by Jim Shahin that I read last week in the in-flight magazine. It was all about summer love and first kisses, and I sat in my seat and smiled while I read it. I nodded along as he described his first kiss, although he he did label himself a doofus. I never kissed a doofus. An idiot, sure, but a doofus, no.

Shahin also invoked the first line of an Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet to describe summer love: “I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.” Take a moment to let that absorb. Quite an accurate assessment from Millay, huh?

In the end, in the absence of summer love, in the midst of happily ever after, I still have a soft spot for summer. I still wish for an everlasting summer, and expect it to take down the fences of responsibility. I’m just a kid soaring on a swing until my heart flies too and maybe, just maybe, this will be the year I learn to dive off the boards. I will watch every Cubs game and enjoy each thunderstorm, even the ones that are so severe that I sit in my basement with a flashlight and a blanket. I will eat fried zucchini and cucumbers straight from the garden.

And so, a salute to summer. If you need me I’ll be at the community pool until they drain it for the season and kick me out until next year.