Outside my in-laws rental cabin a few miles down the road from our home, a father played with his young children in the cool waters of the cove.
Inside, we sat with drinks in hand while our child, who is eleven, played with his baby toys in a pack-n-play three sizes too small.
Inside, we ate lobsters out of their shells and noshed corn off the cob as the sun slipped behind sea and land.
After dinner, we stepped outside to spot two great blue herons dive and swoop along the pebbly shore, their dark presence somehow ominous.
Inside, I had a sick feeling in my stomach, not able to fully enjoy my surroundings thinking about the carefree kids who were wading in the waters, mud seeping between their toes, while mine was inside recovering from a seizure he'd had that morning, holding his head in his hands rubbing his weary eyes, his brain awash in dizzying anticonvulsant drugs which send him who knows where.
Outside, the scenery is all the more painful for its raw beauty, within arm's reach but somehow unreachable to me.
Inside, we sat with drinks in hand while our child, who is eleven, played with his baby toys in a pack-n-play three sizes too small.
Inside, we ate lobsters out of their shells and noshed corn off the cob as the sun slipped behind sea and land.
After dinner, we stepped outside to spot two great blue herons dive and swoop along the pebbly shore, their dark presence somehow ominous.
Inside, I had a sick feeling in my stomach, not able to fully enjoy my surroundings thinking about the carefree kids who were wading in the waters, mud seeping between their toes, while mine was inside recovering from a seizure he'd had that morning, holding his head in his hands rubbing his weary eyes, his brain awash in dizzying anticonvulsant drugs which send him who knows where.
Outside, the scenery is all the more painful for its raw beauty, within arm's reach but somehow unreachable to me.
I just came back from the West Coast of Canada. The beauty there is, I lack words to describe it. And my daughter will never see it or if she did, enjoy it. It used to break my heart but now I understand that home is what works for her. Her home now, not mine anymore which was hard to get used to as well, took me years in fact.
ReplyDeleteI'm thankful you got to the water and sorry that it's so bittersweet.
thank you, as always, lily. you help me feel less alone in this.
DeleteIt's in moments like these that you've so beautifully yet painfully expressed that I find myself resorting to the Buddhist no-mind. That these are just thoughts, constructs, nothing. That we are not our thoughts.
ReplyDeleteif i could put my arms around you now, i would.
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