Summertime, Lakes, and Childhood

I just read this essay:

E.B. White's  "Once More to the Lake",

and it reminded me poignantly, painfully of a piece of my childhood that was spent outside and in woods and on a soft, mossy lake, too.  Oh, man, how I romanticize those times at the lake and how they seem like such a fundamental part of my growing up.  I can recall so vividly the squish of my feet into soft, unusually warm mush, walking into the water up to my knees and hips and pits and then falling forward under the comfortable, private murk.  And I will never, for the rest of my life, ever be rid of the sound of harmonizing locusts ringing in my ears.  

I love how he blends his memories with his son's experience there, and I see how parents' and children's identities overlap in funny little ways, in ways parents sometimes cherish and paddle towards and children sometimes deny and paddle against... to use the parlance of an essay about lakes.  And I have to think about Bradly and who she is and how much or how little I will steer her.  

"Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end..."  What a picture of the cycle of generations and what I want for Bradly in the perfect, permanent, safe harbor of her childhood.  

Springing

Spring

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –

When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;

Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush

The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,

Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,

Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Overheard

"Hold up, girlfriend. He said what?!"

"Well, you look like a hooch with your midriff all out like that. I'm just sayin. Just gimmee that and get yourself straight."

"Another round over here, please."

Mornings

Mornings start with Carter bringing B to me in bed, feeding her, and some serious snuggling and talking. Sometimes we rouse sleepy Lu.

Masquerading

Lu disguised herself as Bradly, and Bradly disguised herself as Lu. We crazy. There was supposed to be face paint involved until I realized I didn't want to have to shoot myself.

Joe T.'s is our Joint

This Season's Snuggie

Have you seen the Forever Lazy on TV? I just want everyone to recognize that this is an adult onesie. And that the commercials are awesome, particularly the part where they talk about escape routes and duty calls.

I think I can check off Mom's Christmas gift. Done and done.