Beth and I went to see Willie Nelson on Friday night, as an anniversary gift to each other. It’s actually called the Outlaw Music Festival, because there are several opening acts (different ones at each stop on the tour) and one of them went on as long as Nelson’s set. Beth and I had thought perhaps the concert started at 5:30 because Willie Nelson is ninety years old and wants to get to bed at a decent hour, but it was almost ten before he even went on, so apparently, we like to go to bed earlier than ninety-year-old musicians.

Even though it kept us up late, the concert was a lot of fun. I was familiar with two of the opening acts (Kathleen Edwards and Nathaniel Rateliff) but only a little, so I was interested to hear more of their music. We were on the lawn for the first two acts. It was a hot day—the car thermometer read 100 degrees as we drove out to Columbia to Merriweather Post Pavilion—and we couldn’t get a spot in the shade, but it quickly clouded over and cooled, and it wasn’t too uncomfortable as we sat in our chairs and ate the pizza that we’d bought at the concession stand.

We were eyeing the sky nervously though because thunderstorms were predicted. Sure enough, just as the third act was starting, lightning lit up the sky and a hard rain started to fall, and to our surprise, the pavilion was opened to everyone with lawn tickets. I don’t know what they do when it storms on nights with sold-out shows, but it was nice to be able to sit somewhere dry, well, mostly dry. We were in the second to last row and the rain was blowing in diagonal sheets, so we got misted with it. Shortly before eight, the rain let up and the food stands re-opened and we got frozen custard (me) and an ice cream sandwich in the shape of the pavilion (Beth). She said it looked like a coffin and it did.

Finally, Nelson came on. His band was small. He was seated next to his late-in-life son Micah (who was also the first act) and he had three musicians behind him. Beth especially liked the harmonica player. Nelson looks good for a man of his age, and he sounds good, too. He sang many hits: “Whiskey River,” “Bloody Mary Morning,” “I Never Cared for You” “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,” and of course, “On the Road Again.” The audience often sang along. It was very nostalgic for both me and Beth because both of our fathers were Willie Nelson fans, though unlike him, neither of them made it out of his sixties. I told Beth later that along with Sinead O’Connor’s death at fifty-six (our exact age!) that same week, it really made me think about how you never know how much time you have left. We could die tomorrow, or we could live into our nineties.

So, that thought brings me to the real focus on this post—the ordinary moments of day-to-day life, however long it lasts. Every five years I do a day-in-the-life post. Up to now it’s always been in early July, but this year we were traveling in early July, and we weren’t in our usual routine, so I shifted it to the last day of July instead. I always think these entries are impossibly boring when I’m writing them, but when I go back and read them five, ten, or fifteen years later, I’m struck by how much of what’s ordinary shifts slowly over time. Consider that when I wrote the first one, Potty Training was one of the categories and when I wrote the last one, College Search was one of them. (If I’d written about today instead of yesterday, I would have touched on that, as North’s filling out the Common App today. And having said that, I guess I’ll use that tag on this one, too.)

Anyway, here’s what happened yesterday:

6 a.m.

This is when Beth’s alarm usually goes off, but I didn’t hear it so she must have woken and gotten up earlier than this. She was headed to the office. Since convention, she’s been in the office more often, at least two days a week and sometimes as many as four. Anyway, I was asleep and so was North…

7 a.m. 

 …as we both were an hour later. This isn’t unusual for North, but it is for me. Staying up late on Friday night seemed to have shifted my sleep schedule. I slept late Saturday and Sunday and then once I got caught up on the sleep I’d lost, I started having trouble getting to sleep at bedtime, thus perpetuating the cycle.

8 a.m.

I was awake, but still in bed, scrolling through Facebook, thinking I should get up but instead watching things like a video my friend Joyce posted—a parody documentary about a nineteenth-century revolt by the Teletubbies against their British colonial overlords (it was as delightfully weird as it sounds)—or a medley video of songs popular in 1993. I have no good excuse for this behavior.

9 a.m.

Finally up, I was making breakfast of Greek yogurt, peanut butter, blackberries, and a sprinkling of granola. North got up soon after and I took advantage of the fact that I was getting a late start on laundry to strip their bed. Because they sleep late in the summer and I like to get laundry going early in the day, it had been longer than I want to say since I’d washed their sheets.

10 a.m.

I was still at the dining room table, reading blogs, possibly yours. North was there, too, eating watermelon and an egg, cheese, and vegetarian Canadian bacon sandwich on a bagel for breakfast.

11 a.m.

Having (partially) weeded the Black-Eyed Susan patch in the front yard and hung up laundry in the back yard, I was getting ready to leave for my morning walk, more than an hour later than usual. North was starting to make chocolate cheesecake with a chocolate sandwich cookie crust and a cookie dough topping.

Noon

Recently back from my walk, I was in the kitchen making a glass of iced coffee to take to the porch with the Style section of the newspaper, and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 for my daily half hour of reading. (Reading every day is close to a religious observance for me, as is the walk.) North was still working on their complicated dessert and complaining about the difficulty of getting lumps of flour out of the cookie dough. I sampled the chocolate cheesecake layer, which was very good.

1 p.m.

I’d just done a little sweeping, dusting, and straightening up in my bedroom and the hall outside it. North and I were both in the kitchen. They were putting the finishing touches on their desert, making room in the fridge for it to set, and then doing the dishes from this project, while I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher with breakfast dishes and fixed myself some lunch (leftover gumbo Beth made the night before with some extra vegetarian sausage added).

2 p.m.

Finally tackling some paid work, I was finishing a 500-word blog post about milk thistle for liver health I’d started writing the previous week. It was more technical and slow-going than I originally thought it would be but fortified with another glass of iced coffee and the Eurythmics, I managed to pound out the rest of it and I was pleased with the final product. I was too in the zone to notice what North was doing. 

3 p.m.

After getting up to get some steps, I was about to switch over a 1,000-word blog post for the same company, this one an overview of how the liver works. I chose Beck to begin the outlining and research phase of this project. North was in the basement riding the exercise bike.

4 p.m.

I was taking a break to take the laundry off the line so North could fold it and wondering in a mildly despairing way if I could really come up with 1,000 words about the liver. North was at the dining room table eating a snack of vegetarian sausage and drinking raspberry seltzer.

5 p.m.

I was still working on the liver blog post and listening to Counting Crows. North had finished folding the laundry and was lying on my bed among the piles of clothes, looking at their phone.

6 p.m.

I was standing on a stool peering into a high shelf in a kitchen cabinet and moving boxes of food around when North came out of their room, and I asked if they thought we had any nori. I was glad to see them because they were out of the headache danger zone. If they don’t have one by early evening, they aren’t getting one. I wanted the nori to add to the miso soup I was making for dinner. I’d intended it to be a simple meal of frozen dumplings and miso soup with grated carrots and tofu, but I kept thinking of things to add to the soup—scallions, dried mushrooms, strips of nori. Beth called it a “loaded miso soup” when I served it. For a semi-improvised meal, I thought it came out well.

7 p.m. 

Beth had come home, and we were all sitting around the table, nearly finished with dinner, discussing our evening entertainment options. We settled on one episode of The Gilmore Girls (for all of us) and one episode of Ginny and Georgia (for me and North). When we do this, North calls it a G and G and G and G.

8 p.m.

We were all watching the Gilmore Girls, season 5, episode 12. My goal of finishing season 5 before North goes back to school in less than four weeks is looking kind of iffy, especially with Noah coming home soon, which will shift our television dynamic, but that’s okay. I knew it was a stretch. I had just checked my blood sugar and was disappointed that I’d gone high enough on the dumplings that dessert was out of the question, and I’d have to wait until the next day to try the cheesecake. (When I did the next afternoon, it was worth the wait.) 

9 p.m.

North and I were close to the end of Ginny and Georgia, season 2, episode 7.

10 p.m.

 I was freshly showered and in bed with Beth, but not yet asleep. We talked a little about her day at work and office politics before sleeping. I fell asleep more easily than the night before and slept until a more normal time the next morning, when I got up and greeted August, a month which will include Noah’s return to the East coast, a possible visit to the Montgomery County fair, a week at sleepaway camp for North, a few days at the beach, and the beginning of North’s senior year of high school.

Obviously, spending the day with a rising high school senior is different than spending the day with a toddler and a rising second grader, or two school-age kids, or a tween and a teen. I’m much less busy taking kids to day camp or hosting play dates than I was then. Summer days without Noah still seem odd. I feel his absence every day, more so than during the school year, but I’m also happy he had the opportunity to do the work he loves for two months in Los Angeles and San Diego and that he’s visiting with extended family in Davis now. (My sister reports they’ve been to a swimming hole and a trivia night, they went to see Barbie, and are having a game night at her house tonight.)

We’ve been through a lot in the last five years: the Trump presidency, a global pandemic (which is why Beth still works from home more often than not), the deaths of two cats, a diabetes diagnosis for me, and multiple health issues for North. Although North’s had migraines since they were four years old, until this year they didn’t force us to make two plans for every evening in our heads (one in which North is down for the count and one in which they aren’t). I fervently hope this pattern changes, because a migraine two nights out of every three is quite disruptive to their life.

But there are some constants: we still watch television together and garden and I still carve time out of the day to read, I dry laundry on the line at least once a week, and Beth and I talk in bed most nights before we drop off to sleep.

It’s entirely possible when I do this next, it will be a record of an empty nest summer day. Or maybe like their brother, North will land at home for a bit the summer after college. Either way, if I’m still blogging, you’ll find out.