Amy and I made it home last Sunday in time to have two hours to finish her camp packing, take showers, and eat lunch before I dropped her off for the all-camp bus ride up to the actual camp location. I felt like a train going around curves and waiting for my caboose to catch up. I don’t think I did catch up with myself until I was home after the drop-off. The camp promised pictures, and we did get a few throughout the week, but not enough for this eager Amy-missing mama! I had to keep reminding myself that, in my day, my parents didn’t get any pictures of how I was doing at sleep-away camp. They only got my paper missives bemoaning my fate and asking to be collected early as I plotted how I could run away from camp toting my trunk down the highway. I never did actually attempt to leave, but I dreamed about it daily because I was so homesick. Amy was not homesick. I haven’t asked her yet because I don’t pick her up for one more hour, but she was there with two of her best friends so I’m pretty sure she was living her best life. Probably if I had attended sleep-away camp with my besties I wouldn’t have been as homesick as I was, but I know moving through that homesickness actually served me well in my life overall even if I hated it at the time.
When Carl and Sarah returned from the airport later last Sunday, Sarah’s beloved bus driver was their chauffeur. Sarah’s expression while riding was joy personified.
Sarah and I had a relaxed week with not much that we had to do. We walked to the mailbox each day, and each day I trailed farther behind her, so it was almost like she was doing the trip by herself. We completed errands by car and by bus. We napped. We read. We talked about Granddad and how much she misses him. We called Granddad and she told him how much she missed his various shirts. After we hung up she expressed a wish to have yet another new shirt to match the Van Gogh print tee that he was wearing. We may need to get a storage unit just to hold all of the shirts Sarah would like to own!
Thursday night we attended the much-anticipated concert by the Bandits on the Run. We all had our new t-shirts, and I could see from a camp picture that Amy was wearing hers so she could attend the concert in spirit. It was an amazing concert, as always. The opening act compared the Bandits to sunshine, and that is so true. Their talent astounds me every time, and Sarah was dancing and strumming her air guitar for the duration of the show.
Yesterday Carl and Sarah went to the Vintage Grand Prix and enjoyed sitting in the shade and watching old cars race. They also did a lot of traipsing around in the hot sun. I enjoyed sitting at home on our porch couch, reading, and talking to one of my besties.
In book news, I am excited to share that I will be at the LiteracyNation Book Fair in Philadelphia on August 9th from 10am-3pm. I will be also be interviewed at the Fig Tree Coffee House by Jennifer Szweda Jordan in Crafton PA on September 17th at 6pm, doing a book talk and signing at the Swarthmore College bookstore on September 30th at 4pm, and part of an author panel at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill (Pittsburgh) on October 9th at 7pm. The interview in Crafton will include one of Sarah’s former teachers since we will be talking about the transition from the Sarah-Rise program to full-time school and how that worked in terms of supporting Sarah.
Watching Sarah Rise recently won the Literary Titan Gold Book Award and it won three Firebird Book Awards: first place in the special needs category, second place in parenting and family, and second place in neurodiversity! Furthermore, whenever I hear from a reader that they learned something or were moved or felt less alone in their own journey because of my writing, that is rewarding in the extreme because that is what I dreamed of when putting this book out in the world. If you have read my book and felt moved in anyway, it would mean so much if you could review it on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or Barnes & Noble. Each review really makes a difference in terms of algorithms helping the book get suggested to more people. You don’t have to write anything profound or perfect. You can just rate it or rate it and write something like, “I laughed, I cried, and I love cats.” If you have reviewed it on Amazon but your review was rejected, you can try emailing them to protest the rejection. I don’t know if this ever works, but it might be worth a try.
Speaking of writing, if you have not yet experienced the incredible work of Andrea Gibson, find it now and let it break you open in the best way.
Wishing you all the sunshiny joy of your favorite driver, your favorite band, and knowing that you make a difference in this world. Because you do. If you have forgotten it or can’t see how you make a difference, reach out to me and I will remind you of yourself.
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