Five Week Boothbay Harbor YMCA Challenge

It took me a long time to get used to Ava. With deep brown eyes the size of walnuts, you never knew where you stood. " Well, that's a grumpy baby ," people would say to me in the grocery store. She wasn't grumpy, but she didn't smile and coo like the other babies did. She pushed her brows together, determined, and frowned her way through most of her early days. So when she smiles, it is my sunshine. When I walk with her through these Evergreen streets, when evening sunlight sneaks between the trees and sparks against strands of her sun-kissed golden hair, when she turns and laughs unexpectedly at something I've said, when she takes my hand while we round the corner to the beach and see the water, when she smiles, she is my sunshine. And when it's raining, all I want to do is surround her with a thousand umbrellas. But I know she needs to bring her own. We are walking together to the beach on one of our last days here when I'm talking about wrapping up ...

I am not afraid of bugs. Sometimes I find a spider in my home or in my classroom and I'll grab a tissue, pick it up gently, and put it outside. I swat at mosquitoes and horseflies biting me, but I'm always surprised when I see somebody happen upon an insect minding its own business, shriek with fear or disgust, and then squash it, dead. The insect was just doing its insect thing. Even the pesky mosquito is just being himself. So I wonder what the wasp that climbed up my pants leg last Friday was thinking. Certainly, she did not intend to get trapped inside my pants. Had I threatened her nest? Had she intended to defend it, only to get trapped in a labyrinth of denim? I twisted and swatted at myself as she stung me over and over again. I tore my pants off and threw them inside out on the ground. By the time I made it to the ER the next day, my leg was hot, all of the bites swollen together in a giant red lump. I couldn't even bend my knee. Maybe it was the shot of steroids...

I have never really liked riding a bike. But Charles enjoys biking. Back when he and I first met, he persuaded me to ride with him. I'll only ride the bike if it's pink and has a basket and a bell, I said , and a big cushy seat because biking hurts my butt. Pink, bell, basket, cushy seat, I demanded . Otherwise, forget it. I should have known better than to put Charles to a challenge because before too long a bike we called "Roxie" entered my life. She was pink all over and met every single requirement. I was shocked she even existed. I loved Roxie, but not because I learned to love riding a bike. I loved Roxie because of what she stood for: my ability to ask for what I want and get it, Charles' willingness to try and please me, a return to childhood whims left unfulfilled, and a dozen other things I could never explain. Sometimes I felt like Roxie represented things I didn't even understand. Ultimately, Roxie retired. She found her way into the girls' ...