#19 summer shards

My family asked what I wanted to do for my birthday and I responded I wanted to go to the local river and wade in the water. I love having a routine and this week it is defined by our grandson who is 2 1/2. We wake a little earlier than normal and we nap more regularly. We splash a little more. Today, I forgot to take a net to the river to catch minnows, but maybe writing provides enough structure to capture the June light, the scent of the river, the coolness in temperature, and the way we all slowed down. Larkin took his time getting used to the spot. We walked up stream and placed rocks on a log in the middle of the river, and sat in the cool, slow current. Eventually, he got comfortable enough to bob and paddle a bit before it was time to come home for lunch.

On our evening dog walk my daughter asked what do I want to do with this year ahead of me. My response was that I want to keep swimming, do some juggling, spend more time in the studio, and do things that bring smiles to all of our faces. She said, “you already do most of that.” Hmm, yes, but I want to keep it up and make an even more blurred and beautiful pattern.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.”

–Annie Dillard, in The Writing Life, Harper Perennial, 1989