Echo of the Sublime

10.12.06

It might be the last truly warm day of the year – although perhaps we’ll be wonderfully graced with another, or better yet, a few… but you never know in these here parts.  So my husband and the dog met my daughter and myself at the end of Wisconsin Point for one last wet sandy fling in the wind and the waves.  Today, no one got hurt.  Our previous trips to the beach have included a head injury, a toe injury, and a hospitalization for heat exhaustion or something else never exactly identified. 

 

It’s funny how it feels like the whole summer was a string of long lazy days basking in the heat with good friends and adorable children.  I think we actually only made it to this beach five times.  Yet in memory it feels like the heart of this summer.

 

Everything was new to my Little Miss this year.  The beach, the depot, the zoo, the boat tour on Lake Superior.  New and scary in that exciting kind of way.   I’m hoping I’ll get one more chance, next year, for it all to be new again.  Is it too much to hope that the things that were brand new to an almost 3 year old can be new again when she’s almost 4?  I don’t know.  She lists off the seasons… “Summer’s over, now it’s fall and I’m going to be a pirate for Halloween!  Winter comes next and snow and… Santa Claus comes and brings presents!”   I wasn’t sure she’d remember the Santa thing – shows what I know.  I guess we’ll wait and see what next summer brings for memories.

 

It’s driving home with a tired, quiet kid in the back seat, and a tired, wet dog in the pick-up truck a half mile behind that the sadness typical of summer’s end drifts over me like a cozy fall blanket. 

 

Time to hibernate, and soon.

 

The autumn leaves have formed an arch over the ruined but passable pavement on which I drive.  Warm sun leaks through the dappled canopy of dead and dying foliage to light the forest with a fragile glowing beauty.  For a moment my heart leaps to my throat and I know I will not visit this place again.  Not this year, at any rate.  Part of me wants to weep as I bid good-bye to the sublime summer.

 

It’s amazing how much can change in a year.

 

This time last year I was nearing the end of an incredibly long period of grief over the loss of a friend.  I could see the end of darkness and was running full-tilt towards light and laughter, yearning to feel joy again, to love and be loved.  I was ready to open my self and my heart to new people and new experiences, heady with the thrill of discovery, half-terrified I’d end up emotionally smashed to bits.  All the parts and pieces of widening my social circle beyond family and those few, but precious, friends I’ve known for a lifetime.  Stepping away from the safety inherent in isolation.

 

Here I am!

 

Today I have 4 friends I hold close in my heart who were strangers, or nearly so, just one year ago.  We start conversations that have no end.  We talk about the intricacies of marriage, partnership, dating, and parenting.  We share time and writing and laughter and love.  Some days I feel like my life is amazing – that I am the luckiest woman in the world.  And I have to say… it’s good to feel that way again.  I’ve been missing myself for an awful long time.

 

It’s human nature to reach your heart out, and human complexity is endlessly fascinating when you meet someone who draws out your truth, who seems to share theirs… when there appears to be no hidden agenda, no building to something more than this, no pressure and no consequence.  Moments of paranoia – “is it real?” are followed by moments of shrugged shoulders because if it’s real, it’s worth the risk that it isn’t.