They’ve wrapped a water wing round the black spool used to hold nylon rope. It’s the little girl’s bait to catch her seven-year-old brother, a very large fish. Under a big blue sky in the round pool of a house we’re borrowing, they make the sing-song sounds of summer, their high voices bouncing off pool water to canal to house next door.
In a hammock in the shade I fight the pull of sleep. Outside this moment is a long list of very important things to keep me busy. I just can’t do them now. My life has slowed to the child’s rhythm of carefree time. I close my eyes, dependent on their voices to reassure me they are safe in this water. I am on a lazy vigil.
I wish I could capture this lazy vigil in a bottle, drink it down each morning. I wish I knew the art of living in time with the sing-song cadence of a child in summer. I wish time were the gentle waves of this pool and not the harrassing gusts of all I have to do crashing against the fear of not getting them done. Someone knows this song, someone with wisdom enough to slow time, with the patience to teach the impatient. Who are you, wise old woman? And under what sky can we meet?
