Summer's End ...
August 16, 2006
Our summer here in Smallwood is nearly at it’s end. In four days we will be on the road again for home and must leave our snug cabin here among the tall trees. I wish there were some way to have our two worlds closer at hand. When we restored the cabin we installed all the appliances and fixtures we needed to make it comfortable and workable for our little family – and it does – it works just as we had dreamed it would and thus the leaving is that much more difficult. Each morning when I wake and fix my coffee in the kitchen or take a shower or even perform mundane tasks like doing the laundry in the basement, I am reminded of the choices we made and the long hours of thought and planning that have paid off so well. And then there is the place itself, the trees, the cold morning air, the lake and all the characters we have come to know here. Yesterday His Holiness and I spent most of the day at the lake, doing nothing so spectacular or unusual, just playing at the water’s edge, building castles and houses and canals, rolling his big red fire truck back and forth across the small beach. There were only two or three other families at the lake yesterday, two of them have children HH’s age and it felt like the lake was ours – and it was really – the children had the run of the place. The three-year-olds all took a swimming lesson in the morning and then played with each other until early afternoon. HH refused to go home – knowing that I would probably coax him into a nap – so we had a small lunch of hot dogs at the café just down the street from the lake and then returned for the afternoon. Last night we grilled some steaks outside and the two of us sat on the chaise on the back patio and looked up into the early evening sky and I told him about our plans for the next few days, about our impending return to Cologne and when I had finished he asked me to tell him the story again, which I did. He had his baby and blanket with him and he curled up in my lap and watched the light changing in the sky – pointing to it with his chubby index finger from time to time when a cloud moved or a bird passed. We took our baths together, to save water and also for the fun of it, he has learned to use a squirt gun and had a great deal of fun squirting Papa with it … I read him a “Curious George” story and both of us were so tired that he didn’t put up even the slightest fuss when I carried him to bed. I followed shortly thereafter – it had been a long, wonderful end-of-summer day.
Our summer here in Smallwood is nearly at it’s end. In four days we will be on the road again for home and must leave our snug cabin here among the tall trees. I wish there were some way to have our two worlds closer at hand. When we restored the cabin we installed all the appliances and fixtures we needed to make it comfortable and workable for our little family – and it does – it works just as we had dreamed it would and thus the leaving is that much more difficult. Each morning when I wake and fix my coffee in the kitchen or take a shower or even perform mundane tasks like doing the laundry in the basement, I am reminded of the choices we made and the long hours of thought and planning that have paid off so well. And then there is the place itself, the trees, the cold morning air, the lake and all the characters we have come to know here. Yesterday His Holiness and I spent most of the day at the lake, doing nothing so spectacular or unusual, just playing at the water’s edge, building castles and houses and canals, rolling his big red fire truck back and forth across the small beach. There were only two or three other families at the lake yesterday, two of them have children HH’s age and it felt like the lake was ours – and it was really – the children had the run of the place. The three-year-olds all took a swimming lesson in the morning and then played with each other until early afternoon. HH refused to go home – knowing that I would probably coax him into a nap – so we had a small lunch of hot dogs at the café just down the street from the lake and then returned for the afternoon. Last night we grilled some steaks outside and the two of us sat on the chaise on the back patio and looked up into the early evening sky and I told him about our plans for the next few days, about our impending return to Cologne and when I had finished he asked me to tell him the story again, which I did. He had his baby and blanket with him and he curled up in my lap and watched the light changing in the sky – pointing to it with his chubby index finger from time to time when a cloud moved or a bird passed. We took our baths together, to save water and also for the fun of it, he has learned to use a squirt gun and had a great deal of fun squirting Papa with it … I read him a “Curious George” story and both of us were so tired that he didn’t put up even the slightest fuss when I carried him to bed. I followed shortly thereafter – it had been a long, wonderful end-of-summer day.
posted by Berlinbound at 1:27 PM
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