Back of my hand

July 31, 2018  Tuesday, Red/Orange sun just peeking over the hills in a cloudy sky

The water and sun soaked summer continues to wash over our kids leaving changes to their bodies and minds forming them into lake rats.  Learning to dive (yesterday), learning to freestyle swim (two days ago – a moment caught on paper by my daughter shown below), learning to do a 180 on the wakeboard (last weekend), learning to spin on the kneeboard (2 weeks ago) -  sun drenched fisherman, rock collectors, and cannonballers, they are becoming a part of the lake or perhaps more tellingly, they are internalizing the lake into their childhood so that this slice of water and sun will be forever with them.  I actually had fears that I would not be able to pass onto them the love of this locale. The love of a place where the streams, rocks, sunlight, weather, trees, hills, birds are seared into my mind like the back of my hand. And just as the back of my hand has weathered and deepened since I was 18, so has this place changed: New names, new faces, new boats, new fish and with age, I see new rhythms.  But it retains its character, and this character is the one my kids are growing into, a falling in love between two things that I adore. So though I feared once they would not like it, I now fear that they will soon know more about the shoreline, the creatures, the weather, and texture of the place than I ever did. It is disconcerting for someone to know the back of your hand better than you do. But comforting in the end.