Fitting life in boxes.

This morning I walked Anu down to a lake covered in white-caps. We stood for a long time with our faces to the wind letting it cool our bodies even just a little. Beyond the lake it is nothing but hot pavement, dust, and slow dying trees. Anu swam and as she did she looked at me with eyes that clearly said: "Oh god this feels good. You should come in too."

Yesterday I spent the day sweating through my file cabinet and a mess of boxes from the last move. My writing room is like an oven on the second floor of this old house. I'm organizing... and in the process I've found that I have a solid 50 or 60 pounds of typed, mostly double spaced written material. Sorted from 1999-2006, it takes up one whole drawer of a file cabinet and that doesn't include any of my journals or blogging. I may not have much to show for it, but I've been more productive than I thought.

As I walked home from the lake along the hot-cracking concrete I was thinking about people who make it a goal to write their first book by the time they're 30. Well, I missed that mile-post, but decided that I'm glad I never had that goal in the first place because now I don't have to feel bad about not having accomplished it. Possibilities still exist.

In the meantime...today I'll pack the basement--I'm going subterranean where there will, hopefully, be at least a little respite from this heat. 2 weeks, 2 days--and we'll be gone. It seems strange to be leaving the lake that I've grown up with, the one that edges this town--this lake sometimes stinks, but is beautiful.

I keep packing and all the while find myself measuring my life up to this point. It's a strange and satisfying feeling to pack everything up, to neatly contain myself in boxes and organized file cabinets. I know this feeling won't last long, but it gives me just enough extra space to sit down by the lake a little longer--with my face to the wind and my feet in the water.

I edge a little closer to the end of the dock while Anu tentatively swims out further, further, until her feet no longer touch the sand below. She swims on faith alone, looking at me all the while with complete trust as I cheer and sigh for her pleasure. When she joins me on the dock, I look up and see a place that has become my home for much longer than I ever intended. I came back by accident. But from my vantage point I follow the curve--where water meets land--and I am surprised by how much this place has shaped me.