Sometimes I Sink Into A Moment

By Lilly on July 4, 2017 • ( 0 )

Sometimes I sink into a moment.

I sit poolside and listen to the sounds of children splashing. Seven of those children belong to me – seven, seven-year-old boys. I’ve only known them a week and yet I feel I might very well know them better than I know my closest friends. In one short week I’ve grown a fondness for them that is something close to love.

Yes, I sink into this moment and I notice the thirty-foot pine tree to my right. Its trunk is thick, not like the thinner version of pines I am use to seeing. Its branches curve up and for some odd reason I am reminded of a menorah, but I am not Jewish so I discard that image and replace it with another.

Brown. That is the color of the pine needles which lay in piles atop the gazebo next to the menorah. I mean pine tree. I remember as a child playing in discarded pine needles and how slippery they can be to walk on. A natural, waterless slip-and-slide. Nature always provides.

Pine trees and pine needles are engrained in my conscience since my very beginning. They are one of the earliest memories I have – green contrasted against blue, a baby wonders at the view. But other memories from that time would like to resurface and so I leave behind the pines and needles and childhood memories.

I miss my mother’s long black hair and the way she would twirl a piece around her fingers, around and around and around. I miss laying my head on my mother’s soft breasts and sinking into the softness of her stomach when she pulled me in close for a hug. But other memories from that time would like to resurface and so I leave behind my mother and the comfort of her soft flesh.

The Sourlands. That is where the camp I work at lies. That is where my seven, seven-year-old boys splash in the pool shouting, “Marco? Polo!” The name reminds me of an old mining town and coal-dusted faces of poor families. I could write a book I think and maybe I would call it Sourlands. It would be filled with tragedy and love and betrayal and triumph – all the things that make up a life.

The life guards hold blue and white striped parasols above their heads while silver whistles dangle from their lips. I think of Mad Men and Betty Draper and how cigarettes really did add a cool factor I would never admit to now, at least not out loud. Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, James Dean…I think I should have been a platinum blonde.

Yes, I am here and I am not. I am present yet so far away. I occupy this space and fly through decades past. I see the bumble bee lightly brush a blade of grass as he makes his landing atop a clover and I feel the breeze on my skin bringing with it the warmth of the summer sun. I listen to the sounds of children splashing and smile.

Sometimes I sink into a moment.