The splash rings through the pool. I am lounging on the sticky plastic chair, lazily reading the same paragraph in my paperback again and again. The splash catches my attention and I look up just in time to see the floral on black sear into the drink. She is at it again, this daughter of mine. High dive: nine steps of pure Mommy torture above solid concrete. Then a pause at the top, a deep breath, and a determined six year old strut to the edge. She plunges like a pencil, writing her summer again and again with scissor kicks and flailing arms. I know she is tough. She who barely flinched for her kindergarten shots and proclaimed her double tooth extraction “fun”. But there is something about the height, the flight and the depth of the waiting pool that stills my heart, again and again.
She doesn’t get this love of heights and flying freely from me. Far from it. She wonders why I never join her on the boards. Even the low dive, a mere three steps from the earth, is too much for me. She cajoles me and says its like soaring. “Before you hit the water, you feel like you’re flying. Its cool.” I prefer my “cool” planted firmly on the concrete at the side of the pool, preferably under the striated umbrella.
The bell rings, signaling the end of swimming and the start of the dreaded rest period. It seems like she is always in line when the bell rings. She stomps over to where I recline, determined, clouded eyes searing. Stopping is painful. Icarus is determined to fly, and resting is no place for a girl like her. She grabs her snack. Pavlov’s Law determines that with the ringing of the bell comes the eating of a snack, even though lunch is not yet a distant memory. “Mom, its time to read.” We use break time to read. A snack, a juice box, and a good summer book make the wait to get back on the boards a little more bearable. Usually a time for Junie B, Jones and such classic tales as Cheater Pants, today I reach a little farther into the pool bag.
Out comes the Family Book, a collection of fairy tales of sorts: today’s version a story of heights and fears and a little boy of nine. She wraps her hooded towel tighter as we snuggle into the reclining plastic chair and I begin a tale of the pain of soaring.
The summer air stirred gently as the family stood in the serpentine line. Young Charles fidgeted like he had ants in his pants, and received the requisite number of stern looks from his father next to him. But this was no ordinary day. Today was one of the most long-awaited days of the summer, a chance to ride the Witch’s Wheel and the Blue Streak, to practice skeet shooting and gobble deep fried cheese on a stick. Cedar Point was the summit of every summer boy’s fantasy, and today was the day for Charles.
To be continued........
No comments:
Post a Comment