SUMMER HOLDINGS

There is an ease with which summer wraps it's languid, lazy heart around my own that holds me in.  It begs me to look more deeply into my troubles and to resettle them to reflect a more provisional despairing; one that will dissipate gently at the season's close.  Like a summer romance that has made it's gracious truce with melancholy by Labor Day.

It is that quiet, manageable forfeit of will that sends all anxieties to the ground with assurances that they will not sprout again next spring because by then, surely, everything will be different.

And therein lies the prayer of every summer night:  That by the time winter has cowed my barefooted insouciance into snow boots and frosted ambivalence, I will have found enough peace within myself to sustain hope within the barren curse of cold.

I have been holding fast to a certain measure of promise inside of my restlessness (a restlessness I've come to understand may never leave me), more so this summer than in any other I can recall.  But I've noticed, too, that I no longer want to remember summers gone by with the same sentimental tangle of heartbeats that sends other mothers lifelines of comfort.

I don't yet know whether that is because of the unarguable loss of innocence and pretense that branded its dark truth upon me with the doleful fate of my imprisoned son or the ceaseless isolation and conflict of my soul as it searches for that hard knot of purpose within the challenging vow of principle.

Perhaps it is simply to avoid the pain of contrast and the power it contains to illumine my maternal failings in the hard light of retrospection.

Whatever the source, frivolity has certainly been blanched from my expectations.  At least for this intolerant moment.

 I am very fortunate, however.  I own an outer countenance of buoyancy that stabilizes my heart during the day and allows me to conduct a fair and pleasantly regulated existence from dawn to dusk.  It has been my salvation; this happy, eye-winking sparkle.  It keeps the curious satisfied that there is no sorrow here and questions remain unasked.

I have banked on my veneer of gracious forbearance to keep the darkness from crushing me, too; knowing that darkness can only be informed by what you yield to it.

I smile, darkness winces.  I cry, it owns me.

But there have been summers similar to this before.  The ones whose dynamics are aligned with trepidation and make me question the very heart of everything in every tense: past, present and the ominous future.  All have been survivable.  All have been enlightening.  I don't doubt this one will be any different.

There was one spent on the beach at my parent's then summer home.  I was feeling especially tormented by the randomness in which my life had evolved to that point, specifically how my lack of forethought had impacted the lives of myself and my firstborn.   I drew the accompanying picture for him and he has asked that I never sell it or give it away.  Someday it will be his.  Someday, when he is once again in full ownership of his life.

But for now I will share it because tonight I am holding it in as closely to my best intentions as the sultry summer has held me to it's best promise.

Side by side
by oceanside

we spied the tide

that never died

but scored my pride

with tiny scars

that fell inside

like wounded stars

and while I chide

the sin that mars

I cannot hide

which one is ours.

The holdings of summer are warm, indeed.