But just as a good book is something to be enjoyed, not memorized, so I think it is with the past two weeks. The right parts will stay, some will fade, and others, as Kristin and my dear mother would say, will slip through the bridge and be lost forever.
Here is what hasn't slipped through the bush or the bridge, yet:
I remember waking up one morning to the soundtrack of Jack and Lilly and walking out and saying hi to everyone -- at 7:30 am, I was usually the last one awake -- and as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes I looked on the kitchen counter-top and saw this:
I'm not quite sure what it means, and when I asked my dear mother, she was vague and just told me it had to do with her studies. I took the photo partly to see if upon further analysis I could make any sense of the numbers, which I still haven't, but also because the numbers and the circled 3 and the underlined solar ray comment at the top are so beautifully Mom. I love this about her, as I know Dad does. I love that she reads books on topics that I didn't know existed, that certain times of day like 11:11 and 10:10 are somewhat significant, and that water is something that needs to be de-ionized [or does it need to be ionized? I can't recall]; she is so wonderfully open to the world and all it has to offer.
I also remember opening a cheap writing pad I'd brought along with me and seeing this:
The scribbles, when I looked at them, left me as confused as Mom's numbers did. But then again, some of the most beautiful things are the ones we understand the least. I'm not sure what pleasure Lilly gets out of uncapping a pen, then running it repeatedly in circles until there are so many twirls and lines and squiggles that there's no room to continue drawing. I'm not sure why she doesn't try to draw boxes, or 3-D cubes [my personal favorite]. But evidently the aggressive circle-drawing is sufficient for her, because there were probably fifteen or twenty more pages just like these, some done in pencil, others in black ink. And then of course, if the pages weren't enough, her arms/legs/toenails were also things to be drawn on.
Of course I remember the beach. [If you look closely on the walkway towards the bottom left, you'll see Mom heading out for one of her "short" strolls]. The wind made it cold at times, especially if the sun went away, and the water was always cold, but it was still beautiful and therapeutic to walk on the sand as the water rolled over your feet and ankles every few seconds. There were a few times I'd wake up and look out at the sun hitting in the water and I'd ask myself why anyone would voluntarily live in North Dakota or Michigan, or I'd be amazed at how little I thought of work when I was away from it.
One image that has stuck from the beach is that of a man who smiled as Kristin and I walked by him. He'd been swimming and frolicking in the frigid water all morning [we'd watched him with a certain level of amazement from the balcony], then he'd run out of the water and lie down shirtless on the sand, which was cold enough to warrant jeans and a sweater. As we walked by, he was stuffing some sand and shells into a water bottle and he turned to Kristin and I and his eyes lit up and he gave us both a full-tooth smile. At first I thought he was insane (what a sad thing -- to assume that because a man smiles so large and unashamed, that there's something off about him), but then I thought maybe he had found out today that he'd beaten cancer, or he'd won the lottery, or his ex-wife had just died. Maybe he wasn't insane at all but was just celebrating life by swimming in cold water and lying on the sand. Maybe it's insane that more people don't do this.
Sometimes you'd walk into a room and see this:
Dad did a rough calculation and figured that you could fit about thirty babies of Jack's size on the bed. I still don't know how someone so small can feel so heavy when you hold them.
And what else? There are the runs with Dad where we talked about the Tao, relationships, what's wrong with America, races that sound interesting, walking across Spain. There was a brief visit from Brogan, who I then said goodbye to for the better part of 2012, but not before a few more great chats and giving him a hard time just because I could.
There were the walks along the beach with my parents, chasing Lilly and then carrying her to help shield her from the cold wind, long meanderings with Kristin where she usually ended up pilfering my hoodie or my beanie because she had under-dressed but the conversations were still delightful and invigorating and ones that I find myself replaying at unexpected points throughout the day. And of course there was the food -- shepard's pie!, glorious fajitas, the pizza bar, pasta with meat sauce, pancakes, barbecues.
My mind keeps fluttering back to something Leonardo wrote. Famous for his paintings, Leonardo also kept an amazing amount of journals, in which he drew [sometimes inappropriate things] and recorded everything he saw and thought. It makes me wary of ever leaving a journal behind, because you're bound to put a few embarrassing things in there and some historian is bound to find it and then history knows what you tried to keep a secret from your friends.
Anyways, in a note written beside an anatomical drawing of the heart, he wrote:
How could you describe this heart in words without filling a whole book?
How can I describe what it's like playing nineteen games of hide and seek with your goddaugther and always hiding in the same place and her surprise at finding you every time? Or sitting beside the people you love and just looking around and taking a sip of good wine and feeling so lucky? How can I ever describe my heart and what is in it at those moments, to know that one day I will die and when I do my thoughts will drift to moments like these that were filled with the people that I loved?
The question Leonardo asks is perfect. And so is the answer.
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