Hey Brain...

Hey Brain, will you please remember this? The delight in your friend's step (if a step can have delight) after a skinny dip in the cleansing waters of the reservoir, despite it being in the 30's? Will you please remember the smell of smoke in your hair and its sting in your eyes as you shift around the circle of seats to find a space to take a breath? How about the smell of cold earth or the taste of it in your tea?


Will you recall the yowling and yipping and howling and hooting? The bear scaring the little bears? The trees falling in the woods- being pushed down by big and little hands? Will you register that no one really cried, except in the night because of a bad dream? Will you not forget how it felt to pull him close, right next to you, because your warmth is all he needed anyway?



Will you not forget the sun on your face...it might be the last? Lying in the grass with your friend and just being in that space, in that time.



Will you please put into permanent memory the jaunt across the way, the hike over the bridge, the adventure through the woods, the burrs sticking to the long underwear that clung to our children's bodies for the first time since last March?



Will you, at some point in the distant future, revoke the feeling you had canoeing by yourself in search of more sun, dizzying yourself by twirling in the wind and against the strong headwind, watching red leaves sink to the dark bottom?




Will you never forget your daughter's surprise when she unzipped the tent to take a pee and looked out into a world of gray fog in the early morning light?




Will you put away in your recesses the fireside stories about half moons and shooting stars and little men who grant wishes at the end of rainbows? Oh, and beaver slaps that scare the bejeesus out of you? Will you download the feelings of gratefulness and awe (at your husband who paddles a canoe like he invented it) and sheer joy of being in the middle of the woods in the middle of fall in the middle of Vermont in the middle of life? And not wanting to be anywhere else but there?