Numbering

 

I am mindful of the day.

In just seven more of them I expect Ken and I to have landed in Chiang Mai, been greeted at the airport, stopped in at the “Big C” mall for lunch and to exchange currency, then have arrived to Hot Springs to settle in for a well needed nap.

Before that we will finish up our family time here, likely with a visit to Giant’s Tomb beach later today.

Then we’ll see them off on Friday, spend just two more days here, then head home for a 36 hour stint before the transportation service to the airport arrives Monday night at 9.

All these details, and all the images and lists they conjure in my mind are only vague and misty right at this moment.

Because I am mindful of the day.

This morning the water is like glass for almost the whole hour it takes to paddle around the island.

Even the open water.   I can give only sideways attention to all the things that are about to happen in the next seven days, because right now, at the beginning of this one, it seems I may have slipped between the cracks of time and space into another dimension.  One where all is calm, all is bright.

“Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” says the psalmist (90:12).

I feel I am numbering here on the water.  Considering, appreciating, being fully present in the moment of it, knowing I will be fully present also in the other spaces and moments that are about to abundantly fill the days to come.

It’s only recently that I’ve learned this skill, if you can call it that.  This ability to “be in” all the deep spaces of my life that bring resonance and joy and demand much and give much.  My home of 45 years in Waterloo.  This home of 50 years on Georgian Bay.  And the home where I belong at Hot Springs for 15 years now, since we’re counting.

What a morning!

This one.

Right now.

Oh the abundance of my numbered days!

God grant me the wisdom to not waste a single moment.

The Puffy Places

 I'm no weather expert.  Let's start there.

What I am is an avid weather-watcher.  Especially in the summer.  Especially when it comes to timing out a trip across the water to the cottage.  Boaters know this.  Island cottagers know this.  Anyone dealing with any sort of open water whatsoever knows this.  

Weather matters, and you don't want to be caught out in a storm.

The repeated weather pattern of the days ending last week and on into the weekend were, to quote the weather guy on our local station, "Cut and paste."  Clear and cool in the morning.  Building heat with a wide circle of pressure and upper level wind throughout the day.  Risk of localized thunderstorm by afternoon.  Cut and paste, on repeat for about four days in a row.  

Sunday wasn't really supposed to be one of those days.  In fact the radar indicated it would just outright rain all day, throwing in the odd thunderstorm at random, for good measure.  And also the radar indicated there might be a break around noonish or so.  

That's not really what happened.  

Almost, but not quite.

That's how we missed getting rained on, but also missed worship.  

Believing the radar, and really needing to be back to the cottage by at least Sunday evening, we left too early to be with our peeps at Highview, but arrived too late to be with our peeps in Cognashene, at the service that in fact did NOT get called off due to rain.  Beautiful day.  All the way up.  Beautiful ride out under a bright sky.  But just not quite in time for service.  

By now, even to me, this is all sounding like an over-apology for missing church.  Maybe it is.  But I actually want to get to the clouds.

Once unpacked and settled, things looked so NOT stormy, in fact quite calm out on the water, that I got myself into the kayak to mark my twenty-second time around the island this season.  Couldn't help myself.  Since I missed worship, my soul needed this.

And there were clouds.

The open sky is one of Georgian Bay's best features, so it's not like I haven't seen clouds on many if not most of my paddles.  Just, this day, with the cut and paste storm still being predicted for a few hours from now, they had a different texture to them.

There was just a hint of the storm to come.  But mostly they were brilliantly white and layered, with complex billows of cloudness (that's not a word, but I've already mentioned that I'm no weather expert, so).  

There are many ways to worship, many kinds of cathedrals, and I discovered this 'puffy place' to be one for me.  In the unhurried-but-something's-coming space, I found myself suddenly on the inhale, in one of those involuntary shudders usually reserved for after a good, hard cry.  Except I hadn't been, crying that is.  At least not physically.  Happened more than once, and both times in response to simply studying the intricacies of the clouds.

Maybe I was just tired from the drive and unpacking.  Maybe.  But.

I am still making my way through the marking of loss of five beloveds this summer, of course I am.  Every one of those beautiful senior souls left their mark on me, and it takes a while to say a proper goodbye.  

And I think I'm still unpacking some of the good things this spring also held, such as graduating and turning 65 and celebrating 25 years with Highview.  All that sort of flew by in the midst of some stunning difficulty (that I have previously and vaguely referred to on Facebook postings), and it's taken a lot of kayak worship to recover from it all.

Later that same afternoon it did rain, yes it did.  Like a deluge of tears perhaps.  It feels good to cry,

But before that, there's the puffy places of wonder.  

Like right now.  

These last two weeks I will be very much in that unhurried-but-something's-coming space, I think.