So I do this: I call my sister and tell her to meet me at the lake, the one in the Cascade Mountains, just 20 minutes away. I load the tinies all up, my eyes pricking with tears because I had a big old FAIL of a day. I stink of Magic Eraser and dark blue crayon and anger.
When it's all too much and I'm not feeling like enough, it's the thing I know to do. I need cold lake water. I need the smell of pines and the sight of them against the sky. I need the feel of heavy aged bark and the cold wind. I need grey clouds draped low on mountains and lake rocks falling through the depths, never-ending ripples of a moment spreading to the distant shores. I need my sister to chuckle and say that she knows and it's okay, to listen because it's nice when someone understands. I need the tinies to run on old wooden playgrounds and swing high to the sky.
And then I need to stand there, on the pier, and for just a second, close my eyes and breathe deep of it all, accept it, me, feel it all somehow in an instant like a wave and the depth and thank you and oh, help, and then breathe it all out as grace to try again.
Linked up with Emily for Imperfect Prose and Heather for Just Write.
