So It Goes

When I open my eyes, I can feel the water moving feet below me. From this, I get the sensation that I am floating. It is quiet. I can smell the subtle trace of brewed coffee in the sole of the cabin, and I feel the gentle ushering of a breeze on my face as it slips in through the back door. For a moment, I breathe it all in. Rays of sunlight wash over the room, and tangle in my hair. I listen to the clap of water against the rocky shore and the way it whispers against the boat in currents, rolling in and out of the little cove, and rocking the boat back and forth like a mother with her child.

I let the blankets slip away as I sit up and stretch. The aroma of coffee is stronger now. My feet find the cool tiled surface of the floor and my eyes immediately catch on the gleam of the coffee pot, next to the stove. Sand clings to my bare feet as I pad across the room. It is a comfort. A coffee cup waits for me, set aside by someone who truly understands love. I lift the pot from its cradle, feeling the gentle pull and slosh of its contents: half a pot more. Cup in hand, I let the sacred liquid flow into my cup, appreciating the dark allure of its amber color, the many tones it conceals like a copper penny, but always guaranteed to bring good luck.

Clasping the cup with both hands, I hold it close, letting the steam curl into upward spirals. I breathe in deeply, taking in the rich, bold contours of flavor. I feel the room dissolve as I raise the cup and the warm liquid rushes towards my lips. Divine. The world comes back into focus, sharper this time. It is not the caffeine kicking in so soon, but rather the sudden but complete and tingling feeling of warm content, spreading from my stomach outward.

I peer out the glass doors of the front deck, facing the shore. The sandbar is quiet and untouched. I pause and listen, soon hearing the soft murmur of conversation winding its way to me from the back deck of the boat. The door is cracked, my dog—white as the sunlight—watches me as I approach. Immediately I feel the heat of the wooden deck on my toes as I slip into the sunlight, my skin prickling from the sudden change of temperature. It’s a good day to swim.

The first words on their lips—happy birthday—feel warm. Kisses from my dog, pinches from my sister, and sure enough, a bear hug from my dad. My mom gives my arm a squeeze then makes a beeline for the stove. When I settle into her abandoned chair, I hear the tinkle of M&M’s dropping into a bowl and I smile. M&M pancakes—a perfectly reasonable sixteenth birthday request.

The three of us, my dad perched on a cooler, my sister and I in folding chairs, chat about past birthday years, and he starts to tell stories of his own childhood. Sipping my coffee, I would listen, and watch the water ripple like glass close to hot coals, trying to escape. He told the story of him breaking his arm while messing with a tractor and the one about him and his cousin dropping a bee hive and running, not quite fast enough for the swarm. These are the stories that I remember. What I remember more is looking up at the porcelain fired sky, painted like the color of a robin’s eggs, speckled with sunlight.

I remember walking to the edge of the boat in a daze, sitting down on the metal frame, and dangling my feet in the cool morning chill of the lake water--mesmerized--and watching tiny fish dart into patches of lighter blue then back into the shadows. I remember changing into my swimsuit before breakfast and lying parallel to the water eyes closed, letting the breeze lick my belly and tousle my hair.

When the pancakes came, they were glorious. Warm and light enough to dissolve in your mouth, with a melting gooey inside as freckled as my face, only my face didn’t write out the number sixteen as precisely. I loved the sticky flood of syrup, and that feeling of being made whole again as the pancake grew smaller, bite-by-bite. It was something to savor. Leaving a pool of syrup behind, I licked the chocolate paste from my fork and settled back into a dream-like state.

I remember waking, flat on my back, feeling the pulse of heat run through my veins. I stood up, braced myself for the sudden coldness that was to come, and dived off the back of the boat. It was like slipping into a dream. I floated on my back for a while then dove to the bottom again before surfacing to pull my chilled muscles up into the warmth of that deck where I would lay, shaking like a leaf, bleeding water across the deck that spread out around me like a star as I attempted to dry.

Lake Powell, I would say later with a sigh. That day was one of those moments in life that you could live in forever, content in the before and after. Consciously, you try to soak up every moment, every flash of ecstasy you can get before it is too late, and the moment is gone—passed. The day passed, just like that. A flux between sun and water, a day marked on a calendar, not for what it was every year, but for what it became that day. The details slip between the cracks of my memory, but are summoned when something reminds me and I wish I could have stayed there, enclosed in the in-between.

I like to think back on the crackling fire that night as we roasted marshmallows, smoke filling the air, our shadows dancing across the fiery rock of the enclave—a beach to ourselves—as we laughed, gorged ourselves on s’mores, and lived. That night, I saw my first two shooting stars tear across the sky, one right after the other. I let my wishes trail behind them like bright ribbons in the sky, their color fading into the night, but never lost. Now, I let my memories trail also, bright ribbons tied to experiences and wound tightly around my fingers, connected to who I am. It was in this starlight that I realized how wonderful the in-between can be, the safety and content of it, but more cardinally, it is moments and entire memories like this that are essential to our existence as they become our vehicle for living.