07.20.16

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I’m planning to resign myself to this hammock for a while later today, after the sheets are hung on the line and bathrooms are cleaned.  We are quiet here at the lake for a while, just us, and summer days are back.  When I left our cool bedroom this morning and walked into the warm kitchen, Don was making his hummingbird food on the gas stove, and I said it brought back memories of old camping trips from the past, when you’d come out of the tent into cool, damp mountain air, and catch a whiff of coffee, percolating on the Coleman stove.  He laughs every time I express this revisionist history with fondness for camping and backpacking trips, but there are obviously moments, coded pleasantly, which are stored deep in body memory.  Like the sweet smell of pine sap warming up in the needles which carpet the path to the lake when the sun is high overhead,  and that boat motor smell which takes me back to Grand Lake vacations with extended family, water-skiing on a quiet cove at sunset.  And, isn’t that what Summer is all about–a legacy from childhood when days were lazy and long, and a family vacation was in the offing, and life was so good, it felt like it would never end.

Next week, another ten-year old granddaughter, is flying in from California, by herself, and staying with us for six days before ALL the family arrives for our annual reunion.  She says she wants to help me get ready and that she loves to bake and cook.  We’ll be busy…

But, just imagine, swaying gently, side by side in this hammock, with a sweet granddaughter who loves to read, while we listen to the birds in the trees and the water lapping at the shore, books propped up on our chests.