We’re not naturally big “go on vacation” people—even in nature’s most persuasive season. For our family, home is where we recharge, where we reconnect. Here, we are our most relaxed, our most free. I’m likely to blame for our staycation state of mind. I think I may have unintentionally turned the kids (sorry, Chip) into bona fide homebodies just like me.
Sometimes, I wonder if it’s not always such a good thing. I wonder if all the comfort we feel in here is limiting our ability to thrive out there. In those moments, I tell myself I need to be more adventurous in the classical sense: Swing big. Jump in. Go someplace we’ve never been. Take a chance—and if I do, do it with arms stretched wide. Do it feet first. And sometimes, I do, and sometimes, we end up on vacations that don’t quite restore us the way we need.
When our magazine team began exploring chase adventure for this summer issue’s theme, it took me a minute to find my place. Chip was a shoo-in to lead this particular brainstorm, but me? I have always been more enticed by a slow weekend at home than a weekend anywhere else. Then a friend texted me this line from a poem she’d come across: “… find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life.”
The poem was meant as an instruction to parents for showing kids the magic hidden within life’s simple pleasures: the joy of taste, the comfort of a hand held. But it spoke straight to me. I loved the paradox in that line—words like wonder and marvel don’t naturally bring to mind ordinary things.
And yet, don’t they? When I daydream about summers past, my mind floods with snapshots of family life that would appear unremarkable to anyone but me: wet footprints on wood floors, Popsicle syrup running down the kids’ chins, pie dough coated in flour, rain showers we watched in awed silence, cold sheets, fresh grass, old movies.
Our dreamiest moments have rarely been the places we went or the big splashy plans we made. They have always been the way we lived out the days in between. The terrifically mundane, quietly compelling, profoundly ordinary days of summer.
This is adventure too, I’m learning. There really is wonder to be found when we stretch ourselves just beyond what’s comfortable to truly notice and listen and feel. There really is much to marvel over when we linger in a moment of sheer delight, when we squeeze from it every ounce our hands can manage. As I thought about it more, I realized the distance between ordinary and extraordinary is a matter of outlook, and we see it clearly when we split a moment open and find its spark. Our highest highs may very well appear wrapped in circumstance, in some fantastic experience, but what if the part that truly thrilled us was the connection we felt—to each other, to ourselves? What if the spark was actually our full-tilt embrace of what is already ours, honoring what’s already here, and that’s what made the moment so legendary?
The poet’s words felt like a challenge, and permission, to stretch instead of sprint. They don’t scream adventure. They whisper, “There is another way. Stay longer, look closely, and you’ll find it.”
Illustration by Lida Ziruffo
So, this season, I am. We are. I’m calling for a summer of thrill-seeking here at home, among the ordinary and the everyday. I have a feeling the true pursuit is learning how to notice, how to let the wind wake us to life, how to linger in moments that don’t announce themselves, how to revere the pleasure of a simple joy as much as an extravagant one. I can see this looking like a spontaneous bike ride with no aim except to let loose and let the sun warm our skin. Or a slow but sure reach for fruits at their peak or flowers in full bloom. It might be an afternoon in search of water, and cannonballs the only way in. Because if it isn’t the size of the splash that defines an adventure, I think it may be the way we choose to move through it.
“I’m calling for a summer of thrill-seeking here at home, among the ordinary and the everyday.”
This experiment isn’t meant to validate my love of creature comforts but to give my family an adventure that meets us right where we’re at. For most of us, summer presents a real break in routine. School is on pause, and hopefully, our calendars are clearing out too. In certain life seasons that might sound daunting. If you have young kids, summer can feel never-ending. You’re hot, and they’re sweaty. Perhaps you wonder where the structure went and look forward to the day it returns.
These days, summer for me looks a bit different. It’s my kids coming home, or staying home, and settling back in. It still involves a lot of ordinary days stacked on top of one another, but instead of spinning my wheels wondering where we should go, this year I’m also asking, “What do we need?”
And when I think about our kids and season of life right now, what I want most for all of us is time to come down, and space to find the off-ramp. Returning from life in big cities, after weeks packed with sports to play and papers to write, I want my kids to see what doors slowness might open. With a few of them off to college, this is our season to come back together, to explore side by side. Maybe we’ll stay out late. Maybe we’ll fall asleep beneath star-filled skies. Either way, I’m believing this to be true for me and for you: Our greatest adventures can begin closer to home. They can unfold right where we are, surrounded by a million ways to grow and make an ordinary moment feel rich and attentive and alive.
This isn’t to say my own family won’t go anywhere this summer. I’m sure we’ll find our wanderlust somewhere at some point. But for the majority of the next three months, I hope we’re chasing the ordinary.
Feet first and arms stretched wide.
This story has been adapted from the summer 2026 issue of Magnolia Journal. To see it in print, pick up your copy here or on a newsstand near you. Then, start a subscription for inspiration year-round.
