I don’t know how God dreamed up this place, but He must have known how much we would grow to love it.
Somewhere back in time, a huge boulder carved out a deep hole and winter after winter, the heavy rains filled it. The secret spring hidden in the woods sent the brook tumbling in to speed things up. Now we have this incidental playground for frolicking.
Hot summer days are magic here. The kids splash in the water and dig in the sand on the beach. Grandkids are locked in the moment, feeling the enchantment, children forever. The sun beats down with afternoon intensity – it feels like darkness will never come again. How could this all -pervasive light ever fade? How could this gentle water ever turn cold and grow a skin of ice? How could I ever not feel welcomed here as the tiny currents warm and cool my body?
Fall encroaches on all of us with its schedules, rigor, and return to routine. But the girls and I must stop here on the way home from school. It’s a perfectly golden October afternoon, the peak of the season, a day not to be repeated again for another year. We grab it. The girls are beyond ecstatic with the still beauty of the pond. The oldest is off and running like a deer and the middle one is somewhere in between, keeping pace, but the youngest still clings to my hand. How much longer will she do that, I wonder. We pause on the bridge. Skies blaze profoundly blue behind somber green pines and fiery fall-hued trees. The yellow and red foliage mirrors unfathomably in the depths of the water. The girls are stunned by the beauty.
Soon we find the brook. Here are watery twists and turns, secret coves, tiny plummeting waterfalls, bridges to cross and use for Poohsticks, boulders to climb, frogs to catch. The oldest fearlessly scales a tree and yells from up high. I shudder and tell her to be careful. The middle one examines stones and collects them. The youngest gingerly lets go of my hand to pick a flower that forgot summer was over.
We are all lost in the beauty of this place. “Look around you, snap a picture in your mind, and save it for a winter’s day”, I tell them, and they do. This day will never happen again.
