The Last Day of Summer...Ripples of Love

 

Somehow it is the last day of summer

and rain is falling on the roof

sweet slow soft,

as it's beginning it also is ending.

This week, for the first time,

two bouncy boys

will head to school together

They promise they will miss me,

but not their teachers, who live there.

The little girl

walks on tiptoes

around the table

and crawls on her belly

to catch balloons

delicious inflated moments

that disappear

before you know it.

The season was spent

plopping berries

launching arrows

skipping stones

chasing waves,

the sweetness

piercing

the water

and returning.

I visited gardens

taller than my head

where birds, bunnies, and me

find surprise, abundance

and we put it in a jar

of goldenness

to pour out,

lavishly, over cold things.

When this ice cream melts

cascading through my fingertips

I hope- for you-

to catch it;

to lap it,

from my hand.

Happy birthday to my maniac man on the move!

Dear Cris,

What an important year it has been! You my dear are learning so many things like how to unlock the secrets of letters and to have big aspirations, such as being a practicing ninja when you are 100. On your first day of kindergarten your biggest aspiration was to learn to be a spy. I have no doubt that you could have physically done it, you would have already engineered a pathway to the moon.

You have left the shadow of babyhood behind and now stand straight like a knocked bow string. You can still curl yourself into my lap, barely, but mostly I spend time looking at the back of your head as you dash to complete your next brilliant idea. You push ahead past naysayers, dream droppers, and road blockers, and sometimes even advice givers. Sometimes, sadly, even when that well wisher is me.

You take the world at full throttle and are utterly captivated by it. And you create curious and marvelous things- a periscope out of a rain gutter that stretches in a tree over our back fence (and thankfully wasn't quite long enough to reach the power lines above), custom holsters, trap doors, booby traps, propellers, catapults, bridges.

You have spunk, in abundance, and frequently lead the dance raves or the party, test your boundaries, and, completely shocking to me, even occasionally moon me. Your favorite things are bold and brassy, so it was completely fitting when you begged to join band this year to play trumpet. You were completely undaunted at being the youngest student that has ever been in the program. Yet you had to learn some valuable lessons about the power of persistence, team work, and humility. Keep coming back to those.

I hope you will continue to be undaunted by learning or paradigms of knowledge and know that it is awesome to keep learning about cosmology, and meteorology, and Gaelic, and knighthood- right now- because they are interesting to you and because only through our questions can we unlock the world.

I hope that you will let this world keep spinning you around and never ask to get off until the ride has come to a complete stop.

I hope that you will remember just how much love you have to give out from that very big, all be it, very crazy, heart of yours.

We love you so much.
X-O-X-O

Mom