Letdown: the low down.

Letdown. No, I'm not referring to my breastfeeding relationship with my baby. That sensation when the ducts open, the milk flows with abandon, and baby is satisfied with his sucking efforts. No, this is a different kind. It's kind of like disappointment. Or disillusionment. Like when you're on a high and then something happens, and you are, well, let down. Down to earth. Down to what happens sometimes in life. No biggie.

Well, this happened last week on the very last day of our first session of Poppy Mountain. It wasn't a traumatic letdown. It was more like an easy landing. One of the kids became ill and could not come. Then another was in the middle of moving house and was just too tired and stressed to come, and may we do it another day? Before I knew what was happening, the last day of Poppy Mountain was not as I had imagined it... There was no last day.

As I look back now on the story I was planning to unfold, isn't it interesting that Sage was in a somewhat sullen and disappointed mood:

"Older brothers and father were gone hunting. They were after a bear they had been tracking for some time. Sage wished he could go on the big hunts. He imagined how exciting it would be to target a huge beautiful creature like that. But no. He had to stay close to home and watch his sister make baskets and help his mother gather acorns. Well, at least he got to go on his own to the creek for water. And to catch a few fish. [Sage was not only an excellent swimmer, he also was an excellent fisherman.] And that's where he was going just now..."

This chapter of the story will have to wait and be told at a different time, and it's perhaps even waiting for different children to hear it.

We still made our way down to the creek that day. The creek where Sage was going. It was the perfect creek day: warm and buggy. My littlest delighted in digging his toes into the mud and crawling into the water.

Our July session of Poppy Mountain begins a week from tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to the continuation of the story about Sage, to new friends, and to the activities we will be doing together in the heart of summer.