then + now

The summer has not quite been what I thought it would be. A cough with fever just after we arrived in Utah set off a chain reaction upon which I won't elaborate, except to say that it feels alternately comical and like something from the Book of Job. Nothing serious, just inconveniences enough to keep me humble and give me lots of time for escapist binge-watching of BBC offerings on Amazon while kind grandparents take my children canoeing and teach them the names of all the wildflowers and birds in the canyon.

Being in my adolescent home blurs space and time. I am fully in the present, a grown woman with a life and family of her own, just visiting. Then I find myself sitting at my grandmother's vanity, now in my parents' guestroom, drying my hair with Townsie, who so resembles my father, sitting on my lap. I wonder how often my grandmother sat in front of this very mirror with her baby, seeing an image so similar to the one I am looking at now. Or my car is in use and I find myself driving my dad's Toyota truck to fetch Steve from the airport. I pop an indie rock-chick cd into the player and relive being the twenty-year-old me for an hour as I drive through stunning mountains and suburban sprawl. 

Or I stand in my parents' backyard watching Violet ride a bicycle for the very first time, my dad holding onto the back to steady her, just as I remember his doing with me when I was exactly her age, or see my kids running through the sprinklers, once of my favorite summer activities when I was a kid. Later, as we lie on the grass at Sundance, watching a musical with our enthralled daughter, I am suddenly eighteen again, on a date with a boy I can't now remember. Even the British television is a throwback, reminding me of the semester I spent in London and how, upon my return, I would cuddle up in front of Miss Marple, Absolutely Fabulous, or Mapp & Lucia when I was pining for England.

And then there are the mental snapshots I take for the future. Townes charging about the house shouting out everything he sees for which he knows the words, even if they still emerge in forms that only his mother could understand. We laugh as he confuses grandparents' names, sure he has them down pat. Baba O! Dada Robba! My memory captures his delight in his newest cousin, gently stroking her tummy or kissing her cheek, begging Hold! Hold! Baby Lila! Violet running out onto on the deck of the cabin in pink Converse sneakers and white sundress, butterfly net in hand, calling to her grandfather that she just caught her first butterfly, her blonde hair loose and luminous in the sunlight. Townes plopping down next to me on the stairs and casually draping his fat little hand across my forearm before snuggling in. Violet poised to jump onto her daddy's back for a piggyback at bedtime, both of their faces bright with anticipation. They are glimpses of absolute purity that pass in an instant, moments of lucidity.

This morning, unable to sleep, I woke before dawn and wandered into the living room of the cabin. Outside, the aspens glowed so brightly against the darkness that they seemed unearthly, and I added them, too, to my mind's photo album. Two more weeks and these things, the beautiful as well as the frustrating, will melt into the past. We will be in a flurry of new experiences and places, completely emerged in a new life. Maybe I'll take it slow just a little longer. I still have a few more episodes of As Time Goes By, Ab Fab, and Good Neighbors on my playlist. Violet wouldn't mind a little more time on her borrowed pink bicycle, either...