My Summer Vacation
By Gail Grenier Sweet ©2005
I spent my happiest hours of summer going on adventures with two neighbor girls. We are the Nature Nuts. Emma (“Hawk”) is 11. Katrina (“Willow”) is 8. I (“Marsha Woods”) am 54. Sometimes their mom and little brother joined us, but mostly we went off by ourselves to the pond or river. I sat on a rock while the girls hunted crawfish, frogs and cicadas. They gathered artifacts -- bones, nests, shells, rocks, sticks, feathers. With these treasures, the girls created a still life on the ground next to my flower bed.
In July I went to Door County with some adult friends. One of them told me I live in the present. I never thought about that before. My own children taught me to “be here now,” but my nest has been empty a long time. This summer, Hawk and Willow re-taught me that valuable lesson.
The End
[This short article was printed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal “Question of the Week” section in September 2005.]