Lake

 

Just a few lazy days left. They swam and dove and made new friends, I read and gazed at clouds. And then we went home to cook dinner together. It’s been a summer of simple fun and easy days, and I’m going to miss them so.

Old Friends

Out for an evening paddle, I saw this beauty. Old summer cottages, I remember it so well. The musty-sweet scent of last summer that lingers on towels and wicker chair cushions. The lone dish rag still pinned to the porch clothesline. The ancient pepper tin rust-ringed on the unpainted kitchen shelf. We ate lunch from mismatched plates on the porch table, and raced down to the beach dragging a towel behind our skipping feet. My summers were spent at the ocean, and I see that lake cottages hold the same memories: summer shadows, cool mornings, and evenings playing board games on the porch.

Island

Kayaking yesterday after dinner, we each had our own boat, very different from past years where they sat in our boats with us. This time they were on their own. They stayed near us and then they paddled away, back and forth, in and out. One time we all came together, our own little island, and shared the brownies they had made to celebrate their grandfather’s birthday. And then we floated apart again, gazing at the darkening sky, watching a dragonfly flit over the water, listening to a dog’s bark echo across the lake. Laughing, learning, and bumping into each other, we navigated the evening on the lake together.

And so it is with our lives. I know that we are lucky to have had these summers with them, weaving the special with the mundane, creating our group that comes together and moves apart, as we did on the water. Simple pleasures.