Today I give thanks for...
Beginnings and endings. This week marked the end of a pretty sweet summer and the beginning of the new school year. Some of us were ready and some of us not just quite yet. T. Bone told my Dad that he just needed one more month. I can relate to his sentiment even if I fall more in the ready camp.
I was wide awake at 4:30 a.m. on the first day of school. Perhaps, I didn't have the jitters, but I did have a monkey of a mind. I decided to head to the lake to watch the sunrise. It's another entry on my list of 45, and it was a mostly clear morning. The timing seemed serendipitous as I like to honor beginnings and endings. The first day of school is both and a biggie.
I was the only one at the beach for long enough to feel my smallness and aloneness in the great expanse of this world. I'm not talking about insignificance or loneliness here, but rather brevity and solitude. It was peaceful and I have to say it...a little bit holy. Divine.
I didn't cry, but I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. I'll let these pictures serve as evidence of what a show I saw. Hopefully, they'll inspire you to get up before the sun some morning and watch her come up over the horizon because believe you me...my iphone does little justice to what I experienced with my own two eyes. There is something absolutely humbling about witnessing the creation of a brand new day.
I had to abandon my pierside perch before the sun was high in the sky so I could make a special breakfast and see off my new 5th and 8th graders. This is a year of starting and ending points for my two. It is her first year of middle school and she is all OMG! It's his last year, and he is all ho hum. I am pretty confident that the photographs below adequately portray said emotions, or lack thereof. About the crepes though...he was ecstatic.
I'd forgotten how fast the school day goes, and also how I almost never get as much done as I hope and plan. All that matters is that I got to the important things like library, walk and pedicure. They both had stellar days and were in conversational moods when I picked them up. Teddy had football practice, and Lily and I had plans to head to the beach for our annual after the first day of school swim. Aunt Jess joined us even though neither of us was able to get very far in to the 58 degree freezing expanse. Oh how I wanted to though. Miss Bit finally summoned the fortitude. She ran in, dove under, came up shrieking and ran out shivering. It was even too cold for her and that is saying something. I was both proud and envious that she took the plunge.
It struck me how evenfall is noticeably earlier every day, how the water is palpably colder every week, and how the waves have reclaimed more of the shore in the days since I'd last visited this spot of ours. We are perched on the very cusp of fall. I cannot shake this feeling that I want to stop time right here...right now...with so much goodness in our purview. Seeing as how that is not possible, I will just commit to continuing to show up with an open mind, open eyes and an open heart. I will gratefully be. here. now.
