Every summer, there comes a moment I look forward to more than any vacation.

The girls have settled into their own little world. They're inventing games, practicing underwater handstands, racing from one end of the pool to the other, laughing so hard they can barely catch their breath.

I sink into a lounge chair with a book I've been saving.

The sun warms my legs.

Every so often, I slip into the cool water for a few minutes before climbing back into my chair, wrapping myself in a towel, and finding my place again.

Every few pages, I hear,

"Mom! Watch this!"

I look up just in time to see a cannonball, a cartwheel in the shallow end, or a jump they've somehow become convinced is Olympic-worthy.

I cheer.

They smile.

Then they're off again.

It's a small interruption.

One I already know I'll miss someday.

For a long time, I thought what I loved was reading by the pool.

But lately I've been wondering if that's actually true.

Because what I miss in January isn't the pool.

It's the feeling.

It's watching my girls delight in being exactly where they are while I delight in being exactly where I am.

It's having nowhere else I need to be.

Nothing urgent asking for my attention.

No pressure to optimize the afternoon.

Just warm sunshine, the sound of children laughing in the background, and a story pulling me somewhere else for a little while.

It's spaciousness.

And I wonder if that's the part I'm really longing for.

Maybe every season has its own version of reading by the pool.

Maybe autumn is a quiet afternoon on the porch wrapped in a blanket while the girls ride bikes up and down the street.

Maybe winter is reading beside a window while soup simmers on the stove and the house settles into evening.

Maybe spring is sitting outside while they're drawing with sidewalk chalk, pausing every few minutes to admire another masterpiece.

Perhaps the details change.

But the feeling doesn't have to.

I wonder how much of life we're waiting for the circumstances to recreate.

The vacation.

The season.

The weather.

The pool.

When maybe what we're really miss is the feeling those things quietly make possible.

A sense of enough.

Of presence.

Of spaciousness.

I'm beginning to think that those feelings don't belong to summer.

Summer simply makes them easier to notice.

Maybe the invitation is to become a student of our own lives.

To pay attention to the moments that make us feel most like ourselves.

And then, as gently as we can, begin creating more of them.

Perhaps every season has its own version of reading by the pool.

Our work is simply to notice where it's waiting.