A Summer’s Day

I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to find the time to write or to work in the summer months – you already know. About cottages and the sun dancing across great lakes like sparkling diamonds; and children, rummaging for the hem of my shirt, lifting it up to press a smudgy face into my belly. I accidentally wrote “life it up” – I’m not convinced that wasn’t my unconscious intention.

You already know about the Sufi mystic Rumi and his love poems, and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, and reading about, intuiting, the link between meditation and running. Meditation is meditation, running is running and writing is writing. Remember that.

You already know about sandy toes and the outdoor hose used to rinse before traipsing through the beach house, and the dead spider floating in the rusty bowl meant to catch the overflow. You know about wet bathing suits and coming together as a family for a bear hug in the water and jumping over waves, one after the other, all together! And screaming, screaming like banshees, and pulling little faces back out of the waves and laughing, laughing until you’re screaming again.

You already know how it is on vacation, when your outside life keeps banging at the door, demanding to be let back in. “Go away!” you shout, and how vacation isn’t really a vacation until you can let your mind go free.

You already know about afternoon G&Ts, followed by steak and red wine dinners, pulling chopped pieces of wood from the burlap bag you bought for $5 from the guy who lives on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, dragging that bag down the beach with your bare hands and little footprints behind you. About towels caught in the wind, blown to the ground, half buried in sand. The incessant wind. A wind that dries, cools, mends, soothes and breaks. The string that snapped, the kite that drowned. The waves that appear out of nowhere. And how the water can just as suddenly quiet.

You already know about fussy toilets and setting up floor fans to disperse warm air in humid rooms. And the oppressive heat that settles overhead in the middle of the day and beats you right back into submission, sand that burns soles and whiny children needing to be carried back into the house, sleepy and sun stroked in your arms.

Fires at night, with the wood you bought from the guy on the side of the road; many false starts then flames bursting, licking the wood, ravenous; finding that perfect spot for handmade roasting sticks and the one marshmallow that inevitably gets burnt, beyond eating. S’mores and sticky fingers. Chocolate-smeared faces.

A burning, searing sensation on the top of your head, causing your hairline to itch, the nauseous nagging feeling of too much sun and the pull back inside, but the counter-weight of the wind and water, of the glittering shoreline, is greater still. The gasp, “Ahh” as the water line accosts your chest, your soft side, and the chill and thrill of diving under. That refreshing feeling, as the water heaves, breathes you in, of being part of it all. Floating, tethered like a buoy, weightlessness.

About food, again. Gummy bears and a giant chocolate almond bar and pretentious crackers: organic artisan crisps of raisin, rosemary and pumpkin seed made with bulgar, Himalayan pink salt and extra virgin olive oil slathered in cream cheese and red pepper jelly. About stops at the cheese shop for squeaky curds and the local farmer’s market for peas so fresh they make you want to weep. At the fleetingness of time and seasons. And tiny beets. And cleaning out Beans Bistro of all their freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies. About letting calories go.

About waking up before everyone else and cracking open a book, or watching the ducks float by, or the sun setting a sub-Saharan Africa red; or throwing on a bathing suit and cutting through the lake one efficient stroke after the other to train, or to throw on a pair of running shoes and run, run, run, feeling the pull of the wind.

About leaving showering behind, letting the children go feral with one eye open and sticking out your tongue at the passage of time with only the shadows of the sun and the rumbling of tummies to remind you that the day is moving on and you probably should too.

About thoughts from the outside world: the upcoming triathlon; planning a writer’s retreat; a trip around the world; writing that next book, and extended family – how goes our family back home? What is everyone up to? Grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Of course, the world continues to go on.

And about monkey brain. Do you know about monkey brain? It’s when your mind hops from one thing to the next and lacks the focus to stay entirely on one subject. I am a monkey brain.

But you already know about all that. Our Canadian summer, wild and free. Fleeting. Snippets of life, at the cottage. Carry on.