summer
The girls have one day left of school. Well technically two but Erin is taking the day off to go to the mall today. She will pick up her report card tomorrow. Monica has a beach day with her class. It is only 8 am and the day has already heated up considerably. I have my trusted little fan that is blowing warm air at me but I would love some true relief from this heat. Greg’s parents left yesterday to go home. I hope they had a nice stay. I think they did? We’ve decided to leave here on the eight to go back east and will only be staying two weeks this year but I am sure we’ll make the best of those two weeks. We have lucked in again and will be staying near the water for half of our stay. This stretch of beach is secluded and the water is wonderful and you only have to walk out about twenty feet before it drops right off. And then there are the sunsets and of course family. I have always been in love with the place but last year my visit home was so perfect that I have been waiting an entire year to feel all that again. Of course it can’t be as lovely as last year, now that Sandy is gone but in some ways I think I need this trip back east more than I ever have. My girls are all city and growing up fast and both now feel two weeks is long enough in the Wilds of New Brunswick. I can’t get over that sometimes how completely opposite their childhood is to the one I experienced. Mine was fields and shoreline and ponies and following the railroad tracks back to the big damn to swim in leech-infested waters. Theirs is crowded public pools, subway trips to the malls, playing man hunt on the streets outside our home and in the alleys and the occasional trip to the amusement parks, zoo and movie theatres. Sometimes I feel I cheated them out of that “Stand by Me” childhood I had _thinking they would be as excited as I am about returning east every year to experience the great outdoors but they feel a month is far too long to be away from the city and their friends and I’m happy they love where they are from as much as I love where I started from.
Maybe it has nothing to do with place but with childhood and their childhood is here.
But last year, the trip back home was so wonderful because I did get to experience a taste of childhood again through a series of little things. Playing beach volleyball one afternoon with my brothers and sisters all of us carrying on like we were still teenagers, taking a fishing boat out on the river and diving off the side of it also with my brothers and sisters and spouses and nieces and nephews, finally getting the courage to jump off the wharf that I had never been able to do as a child, spotting a doe and her baby on the shore and for a moment having it take my breath away, taking a road trip to Shippigan, stopping for ice cream. (My last adventure with Sandy) reminding me how often Sandy and I had hung out together as kids. O.K. enough of the sentiment - just looking so forward to going home. Did I tell you it was hot? I find it hard to sleep and sometimes find myself in the back yard at weird hours. I wrote this a few nights ago while out there.
Near dawn and the first pale light of day has yet to find the horizon but the night seems less dark by the pink peonies. A lightness engulfs the ruffles; round and round, getting smaller and smaller to the centre like Kleenex tissue squished in one’s palm. Dawn and the flowers that close for the night wait to be opened slowly to a gentle pry from yellow rays. The birds, seldom as patient, already in chorus above the garden. But still it is quiet. The world sleeps as dawn nears and in this moment where night begins to fold you can almost believe in anything, even yourself.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home