Bobbing in the Shallows

Emptiness as plenitude.

Summer skips across the lake. Later, jet boats throw “rooster tail” walls of water from their sterns. The display stops all attempts at conversation. Women may own and drive jet boats but . . . c'mon man, I see you.

At Reunion, new moms ask if I am vaccinated and then lovingly hand over their babies to bounce. My shirt is soaked with sweat and the heat is broiling my brain, but I still love cooing and smiling with the babies.

All the sudden, studying my grandmother a little more closely. Her fair and thinning skin is my skin. Her red hair has faded to a yellowing white. Her rosaries come consecrated from Rome and each one belonged to someone she loved with fierce devotion. She prays for hours and everyone at church knows her by name and vice versa. I sat next to her and what is seen by earthly eyes felt older and yet, what is internally pulsing felt ageless. She prays for my conversion back to Catholicism every day. I told her I am fully in God's embrace and feel more loved than I ever felt possible. She smiles and stares out at her great grandchildren bobbing in the shallows.

Plans to collect milkweed seeds from the field to replant in my care. Is that stealing? Well, if I sit still long enough, they will land in my lap, so there is that.

Vermont on the eastern horizon and rising at dawn, that dulcet, familiar voice wafts: child, what is taking you so long?