Vacation time

Tomorrow I leave for Colorado, for the 15th annual Alsop family summer vacation to the Cabin. This year I will hopefully be reading more classics, so that Dad will perhaps believe that I am in the right major. This year I plan to write some each day, to take walks on my own, and to take pictures of what I see. This year I want to think less about silly relationships and more about how to make the most of the time that I have with my family. This year I want to have a relaxing vacation, without tears shed over laying the fire, or spilling orange soda, or having to get up early for morning duty. This year, I will try to let Matthew have the last piece of bacon. We'll see how it goes.

But before I go, here's another poem. Maybe this year I'll write some more poetry to share with you via this blog. At the very least, I'll have pictures.

Starfish- Eleanor Lerman

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.
Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.
So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.