Fourth of July Meditations
My Dearest Love,
Your son decided to stay up north a week or so ago. We had all gone up for a family visit and when it came time to go, he said that he wanted to stay. So, he did. He is camped out at my mother's for the most part, spending his days working (no less) for my brother as a laborer helping to take care of the grounds where my brother heads up the facility department. Who would have guessed?
When he is not working, he is visiting with cousins, aunts, and uncles (not to mention his grandmother). It sounds like he is having a grand time and will continue to do so until this weekend when I will drive half way up and meet the "Joe Shuttle" by the little road side attraction known for it's fat pills.
This will be the second year in a row where he has spent the Forth up north and you know what a stickler he is about tradition.
As for the rest of us, we lead a quieter life when he is away. Your daughter and I drift in and out of each other's company. It is mostly her drifting in and out while I rattle around the estate shadowed by a black hairy thing that silently dogs my footsteps.
We are in the depths of summer here. The weather has been deceptively beautiful, with warm days and lots of sun. The problem is, of course, that we need rainfall. The pond behind the house is drying up. Just this afternoon, I watched a beautiful white egret filling up on frogs and other wiggly things concentrated in the ever smaller quantity of water. Death and beauty often go hand in hand.
Speaking of death, we were visited a couple of days ago. I got a phone call from our old neighbors, the ones kitty corner from our back yard at our old place. Kay told me a chilling tale of boats, tubing, youngsters in trouble, frantic attempts by parents to rescue them only to sink beneath the waters themselves.
You remember our neighbor who had the three-season cabin just across the road from us? The one with the three adopted children? Do you remember the girl-child who married the nice, quiet young man? They proceeded to make babies and moved into the old house of her mother who in turn tore down the three-season cabin and built a proper little house on the shore of the lake.
It was he who drowned two days ago, leaving his young wife a widow with three children now and one more on the way. Tragic is too weak a word for this. The usual 4th of July celebration in the old neighborhood will be quiet this year. It hurts me to think of it.
Now, to balance this talk of death with something a bit brighter.
A much happier thing has happened to me. I have met someone from out of my past, a time long before I met you. We were friends back in the early seventies and dated for a bit (I think we did, tho neither of us can remember any details - it was right after the sixties after all). Anyway, we met again at the 50th anniversary of the college FM station where I used to do late night shows. She was the one that got me interested in being a DJ, and I, in turn, got her a job at a local TV station where she went on to a broadcast journalism career.
In the years since, we both married late and raised (mostly) family's that now have children that are roughly of the same age. She did her raising in Washington state until the last few years when she succumbed to homesickness for the northern inland sea and decided to split her time between here and there.
What will happen next is unknown, but the time I spend with her either here, or up north, has been particularly wonderful. I know that you talked to me about how this may happen before you left and how I expressed my skepticism, but as usual, you were wiser than me and correctly saw the possibility that I might heal up enough so that I might be able to love again. Whether that is now or not will become clearer with time. However it goes, I hope that you can extend your blessing.
Maybe you just did. As I write this, I hear the cry of loons outside the window - surely one of the most haunting and beautiful of sounds.
Fair thee well, my love. I miss you and think of you always.
D.
Your son decided to stay up north a week or so ago. We had all gone up for a family visit and when it came time to go, he said that he wanted to stay. So, he did. He is camped out at my mother's for the most part, spending his days working (no less) for my brother as a laborer helping to take care of the grounds where my brother heads up the facility department. Who would have guessed?
When he is not working, he is visiting with cousins, aunts, and uncles (not to mention his grandmother). It sounds like he is having a grand time and will continue to do so until this weekend when I will drive half way up and meet the "Joe Shuttle" by the little road side attraction known for it's fat pills.
This will be the second year in a row where he has spent the Forth up north and you know what a stickler he is about tradition.
As for the rest of us, we lead a quieter life when he is away. Your daughter and I drift in and out of each other's company. It is mostly her drifting in and out while I rattle around the estate shadowed by a black hairy thing that silently dogs my footsteps.
We are in the depths of summer here. The weather has been deceptively beautiful, with warm days and lots of sun. The problem is, of course, that we need rainfall. The pond behind the house is drying up. Just this afternoon, I watched a beautiful white egret filling up on frogs and other wiggly things concentrated in the ever smaller quantity of water. Death and beauty often go hand in hand.
Speaking of death, we were visited a couple of days ago. I got a phone call from our old neighbors, the ones kitty corner from our back yard at our old place. Kay told me a chilling tale of boats, tubing, youngsters in trouble, frantic attempts by parents to rescue them only to sink beneath the waters themselves.
You remember our neighbor who had the three-season cabin just across the road from us? The one with the three adopted children? Do you remember the girl-child who married the nice, quiet young man? They proceeded to make babies and moved into the old house of her mother who in turn tore down the three-season cabin and built a proper little house on the shore of the lake.
It was he who drowned two days ago, leaving his young wife a widow with three children now and one more on the way. Tragic is too weak a word for this. The usual 4th of July celebration in the old neighborhood will be quiet this year. It hurts me to think of it.
Now, to balance this talk of death with something a bit brighter.
A much happier thing has happened to me. I have met someone from out of my past, a time long before I met you. We were friends back in the early seventies and dated for a bit (I think we did, tho neither of us can remember any details - it was right after the sixties after all). Anyway, we met again at the 50th anniversary of the college FM station where I used to do late night shows. She was the one that got me interested in being a DJ, and I, in turn, got her a job at a local TV station where she went on to a broadcast journalism career.
In the years since, we both married late and raised (mostly) family's that now have children that are roughly of the same age. She did her raising in Washington state until the last few years when she succumbed to homesickness for the northern inland sea and decided to split her time between here and there.
What will happen next is unknown, but the time I spend with her either here, or up north, has been particularly wonderful. I know that you talked to me about how this may happen before you left and how I expressed my skepticism, but as usual, you were wiser than me and correctly saw the possibility that I might heal up enough so that I might be able to love again. Whether that is now or not will become clearer with time. However it goes, I hope that you can extend your blessing.
Maybe you just did. As I write this, I hear the cry of loons outside the window - surely one of the most haunting and beautiful of sounds.
Fair thee well, my love. I miss you and think of you always.
D.
Copyright ©2003-2007 Phaedrous
posted by Phaedrous at 10:50 PM
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