Category: summer vacation

morning at the lake

July 3rd, 2022

You’re not going to get all the beautiful mornings. Not to the extent that you desire. This one—the best one yet, July 3^rd, 2022—is gorgeous. Smooth lake. Warm sunrise. Cool air. Dewy grass shimmering in the light.

Time to kayak, paddleboard, fish. A slow morning cruise around the shoreline and islands. But no, not today. I’m inside with the noisy refrigerator that I’m sure has both comforted and disturbed sleepers and dreamers over years to me that are unknown. After all, we own this place now, but it belonged to other lives for decades. We’re still getting used to the place. It’s our first summer. But it feels like we’ve been here before. Another glitch in the Matrix, perhaps.

Now that I’ve started writing and accepted my morning fate, I’m indifferent. This one’s going to shape up and deliver whatever it chooses. I’ll sit and wait and see. Frustration started brewing as the Keurig filled my coffee cup, but now that feeling is gone, subdued, sunk away to wherever feelings we don’t want to feel go. Astro, the shrimpy Husky cannot be without me for long. This morning, not at all. So, I am anchored to the shore, always within sight. I don’t need to interact with him, though I do, throwing the yellow tennis ball, talking to him, giving him good boys and scratching his chest. He just needs me near. I am his therapy human.

The woman next door isn’t tied to the land, her cottage. She returned from kayaking 20 minutes ago while I threw a lure into the water. Twice. I had to return from the dock after my second cast because Astro was anxious and whining. Bouncing at the end of his leash. I didn’t want him to wake anyone, so I got him into the cottage. Spindle, the Beagle-Pug-Bulldog mix, told me she had to go to the bathroom. While she was out, I filled the coffee maker with water—a slow process because we’re using water from the outside world, a big jug that obviously realizes how precious water is and is reluctant to release it. It took two minutes to fill the Keurig and another minute to fill my water bottle. By the time the coffee was ready, Spindle was barking. The woman next door was now on the dock, stretching, doing push-ups—yoga. She was getting hers. The morning. The beauty.

Or maybe not. She’s not running in and out after dogs. Not waiting for her wife and kids to wake. She is alone, at least for now. And we all deal with that in our own way. Maybe her family is coming later and they are bringing the dogs. Her silence, the quiet world that’s wide open for the taking, or to take her, may disappear.

The old refrigerator has stopped buzzing, clicking, whirring. Spindle made her way into my daughter’s room after I scolded her for talking to the lady next door. So loudly. So early. But she’s snuggled up now. Making sure my kid gets a few more hours of sleep. Astro is on the blue leather couch looking out the big window at the still, bright day that’s unwrapping itself. His ears are up, at attention. Waiting for my next move.

~ KJ
the obvious

June 27th, 2021

Mayflies dot damp sidewalks as we move along with the dogs. Our morning exercise between bouts of rain.

The routes we take are the same. There are only so many streets in this town. Best we can do is switch up our lefts and rights to see the world from different angles at different times.

An inchworm. Translucent green. Dangles from a Maple tree. Spins slowly round and round.

A robin bounces through thick green grass and stops near us. It waits. Listens to a worm move through the earth. Then, it pecks and pulls, stretches the worm out, until it pops from the dirt.

A white wicker rocking chair moves back and forth on the porch of a house on State Street. There’s no wind. Nobody in sight.

The dogs rub noses.

“Did you see that,” I ask.

“They do love each other!” my wife says.

I want to mention the chair. Point to it. Wonder with her at this obvious example of early morning energy, but it’s probably nothing. Things move. And everything’s been in motion forever, and will stay that way, so I keep the obvious to myself.

~ KJ
backroads

June 10th, 2021

Get in and ride.

Take the fork. Bend the spoon.

Let the roads expand perception and create our path.

Ignore the compass. Follow the shapeshifting clouds.

Climb the gravelly hill. Roll and brake down the sandy slope. Gas it through the water hole.

Let’s open the moonroof and the windows. Let the lake, earth and forest whirl up all around us, and let’s breathe it—deeply—over and over again.

The miles and miles of hope.

~ KJ
no hands

July 13th, 2020

A twelve-year-old girl keeps

a sunfish in a bucket for days.

One she caught while camping.

She feeds it bits of leftover burger.

Dried worms from the sidewalk.

Poor, stupid moths that bang

against her bedroom window.

And ants.

The sunfish floats.

Surrounded by white walls.

Under a narrow shaft of light.

The big sky that waits,

is occasionally blocked

by big brown eyes

and a wide toothy smile.

Gills in. Gills out.

Fish die.

From heat,

lack of oxygen,

birds that watch from rooftops,

and neglect,

as the girl plucks flowers

from the neighbor’s garden.

Jumps for hours on the trampoline.

Hides in the maple’s leafy branches,

eating Skittles stolen from Dollar General

until she is brave and indestructible,

all hopped up on sugar,

circling the block

of a boy she likes,

riding her bike

no hands.

~ KJ
summer vacation

August 25th, 2019

sun
Copyright @ Brooke Stevens, 2019

Handprints on windows. Fingerprints on the fridge. A pair of wet socks in the sink. Cereal bowl and spoon sitting on the couch. The smart TV shows THE AMAZING WORLD OF GUMBALL to the dog. She’s curled up in a big pink blanket, surrounded by a dozen stuffed animals, and has a purple bow on her head. She wags her nub.

Lights are on in the bedrooms, the hallways, the writing room, the den.

There are dollops of bright blue toothpaste on the bathroom countertop. Water drops splashed across the mirror. A toilet that hasn’t been flushed all day. I hit the handle, down it goes.

Strands of toilet paper are wrapped around the railing of the back staircase like garland.

There’s a bird’s nest in a bucket in the mudroom. The garage door is wide open. My hammer, two screwdrivers, a saw, eight rusty railroad spikes and a pile of driftwood are on the floor.

Outside, the garden hose snakes across the driveway and floods the flowerbed. I shut it off and walk to the backyard where a yellow sweatshirt and more socks—one red and one green—hang on the fence. The gate is open.

There’s a tent set up. Soccer balls, books, Tupperware, and pots and pans are spread throughout the grass.

And there she is. Ten years old. Flat on her back on the trampoline.

“Hi, Daddy!”

She’s smiling, moving her arms and legs—making a snow angel, I guess—under shapeshifting clouds and a sun that promises no end.

~ K.J.

Category: summer vacation

morning at the lake

the obvious

backroads

no hands

summer vacation