Summer - Part One

                                               

We are leaving the dock at the marina, boat loaded with five weeks of expectation.  I should be more excited.  Instead I am so exhausted that later I will not be able to recall the time of day, the weather, or even very much of this first ride at all.  Except this is the first boat ride, and so, aware of it or not, the healing begins.

The Georgian Bay air is blowing away all the work, all the worries, the rest of the world.  Just for now.  Just for here.  All I can hear is the roar of the motor.  All I can feel is the wind in my hair, the air on my face washing away the urgent tyrannies.  All I know is that there’s water and rock and trees and sky, and that it’s time.  I breathe.

I sleep.  For days and days I sleep.  And make chipmunk friends, one of whom seems to have lost most of the fur on his back.  He’s a mess.  Like me.  I call him Scruffy.  He’s bold and saucy, so I can’t tell if he looks so rough because life’s been rough or because he made it so by being too crazy.  Like me.  I’m just not sure.  But I’m hoping that my being here will help sort all that out for us.  Quite the pair, we are. 

I sit.  Sometimes that’s it.  Just sitting.  Drinking tea from a mug that reflects the iconic bending of the trees in this place, by the shape-forming winds that prevail.  Drinking tea and not planning anything, or thinking any thoughts beyond being curious as to the significance of four loons swimming around in a tight circle making their loon noises in the middle of the morning like they are doing right now.  

   

Or chatting briefly with Scout, my faithful seagull guardian, about what’s up around the bay.  Or receiving a morning greeting from the jenny wren who is building a nest in the birdhouse above the deck.  And my small animal friend amusements bring a certain simple, cottage joy, and I feel myself coming back like a slow fade from black and white to colour. 

I am smiling now, about seven days in.  For no particular reasons, just randomly throughout the day. 

And sleeping less.  Which allows for a few de-wintering activities, mostly involving the back bedroom where, in just a few days, sun kissed children will be sleeping.  And as I liberate the plasticated mattresses, dig out some quilts and make some beds, I notice that someone is singing, and that it’s me.  Old Sunday School choruses I don’t think I’ve sung in forever, but which easily flow up from those deep brain places to remind me of how wonderful Jesus is, and that my Mom would sing these too. 

Which leads to enough time, finally, to bring some closure to the long distance grieving that so unfortunately marked my last years with her, and in the end, was how it was; me so far away when she left.  And letting go of things not being what you wanted them to be for someone so important is an awful letting go.  But it happens now in better ways, here down on the dock where nothing else competes for the energy required by it.  And I sing the Mom songs about Jesus, and imagine her humming them with me as we prepare for the children together.

And now the children are here!   And glorious, noisier days ensue in which canoe rides sandwich picnics, where Gramma watches and is ambushed by overwhelming wonder that these three playing on the rocks and in the water have, in some mysterious way, been gifted to my heart.  Swimming confidences grow and amazing adventures happen along the shoreline.  Forts are built and marshmallows roasted and little unsuspecting fish and frogs become our ‘pet for the day’. 

And together we weather a ripping storm, huddled together on Gramma’s bed as the wind tears away the dock and drives the water in right through the seams in the wall.  This same storm, not so very far away, will snatch away the entire roof of a cottage, not so very far away, or did I mention that?  So we huddle, and murmur reassuring things to one another as the lights go out.  We do this well, this family.  Weather storms.  And it’s not lost on me, as we sense the lessening of the wind, and climb down from Gramma's bed and survey the damage, that our very being together for this has been forged for us in another storm, and hard won by deep forgiveness and beyond-ourselves grace. 

Grace becomes the theme of Summer Part One.  My extreme weariness upon arrival feels to me a failure of my commitment to living balanced and whole.  It’s not, I know, the demands of the season just past being what they were.  But I feel it differently.  So hearing, as I do, the whispers of God in this place these weeks, it’s all about forgiving and grace and healing, all over again in the places of my soul that are still proud and self-promoting and self-sufficient. 

Grace upon grace is poured down on me, and it happens in every moment that I fully engage with my awakening self, and unfold that self to God.  In the simplicity of hanging wash out to dry on a day so hot and breezy it takes no time at all.  In the easy, unhurried waking from a nap, doors and windows wide open to cover me with fresh everything as I slept, and now making no demands that I get out of bed.  In the random, ‘unrelated’ books, I’ve brought to read.  In the reading over of last year’s journal.  In these precious and all too few days alone with Ken, being beaten in Scrabble over and over again.  In the way the bear runs so very quickly away from the noise of the bear horn (it works!).  In the sunrises and sunsets.  In the canoe and kayak.  In the stilling of my skittered self among the lilies there. 

Quiet, still and breath-snatchingly beautiful, this healing and forgiveness and grace is laid down upon my demanding-season, self-ravaged soul.

I am undone.  Again.  I am here beside the waters.  My soul is being restored, morning by morning, moment by moment, year by year.

 

And now, in what seems to have transpired in mere days, not weeks, it is time to load the boat back up again and head into the marina for the drive home. 

Am I ready?  As I fold up the cottage linens, and pack away my clothes and books, and leftover food, I find myself unreasonably unwilling to leave, greedy for more.  This is always the case because, come on, who would leave without a very good reason?  But perhaps more so this summer, for all the reasons listed above, I am already homesick for this place before I even finish the last clean sweep of the cottage.

Scruffy has been healing.  More fur has grown on his back.  He seems somewhat less frantic, although not yet mellow enough for me to get a picture, not since the peanuts ran out and he only comes by now for a quick check in.  But he looks better.  Not a perfect coat of fur just yet, but there’s improvement.  Like me.

And it’s time.  There’s been water and rock and trees and sky.  Summer Part One.

And lucky me!  Summer is not over.  Now I get to do Summer Part Two.  A different kind of being summer, back home in the city, where there are people I love and a pond by the church and a patio in my backyard.  And good work to do.   

Yes, good work.  

Such a gift, that.