The sound of cartoons in the other room, peppered with occasional laughter from my son.
Blueberry waffles with pure maple syrup. Bacon. Strong coffee with real cream.
79 degrees. Slightly overcast. Bikes, helmets, trailer stocked with snacks and towels, hats and plastic construction equipment still plastered with sand from the last excursion. Also: a little boy.
The lakefront: The harbor, smelling faintly of fish. Dandelions, Queen Anne's Lace. Yellow Butterflies. The smell of chorizo on a grill.
The beach: an empty lifeguard station (if not manned on Memorial Day, then when?). Kayaks stacked by the waterline, waiting to be rented: orange yellow red red orange. Tanned young men playing volleyball without shirts. A golden retriever who seems to be rooting for his owner's team.
My four year old son learning to be courageous, takes his plastic buckets and shovel and dumptruck over to two eight year old boys, sinewy and dark, asks them if he can help with their castle. Sure, they say. He looks over at me, beaming, then kneels and begins to scoop sand. This is how we learn how to get along. Someone had to teach me, too, once.
Picnic: Fried chicken, grapes, cheese, fresh baguettes with real butter.
The rumble of distant thunder: everyone on the beach turns to check the sky, decides everything is fine. The charcoal clouds are too far away to be of concern.
Pre-teen girls play in what there is of the surf, most of them completely clothed, some even in jeans, soaked through. Their t-shirts cling uncomfortably to their training-bra torsoes, as they cover their chests with crossed arms, teeth chattering. It's hard to be twelve. I remember.
Lightning in the periphery. A girl flies a kite: no key. The golden retriever stands, barks once to tell his owner that volleyball time is over. Two pregnant women start to pack up their bags, towels barely containing their full bellies.
My boy loves storms, but he loves them outside when he is in. He's scared. We leave his dad to pack up our camp, and we run-walk up the makeshift boardwalk to the boathouse. We sit criss-cross-applesauce across from eachother and look out at the rain starting to fall in sheets across the water. My son has his fist up to his mouth in suspense, silently rooting for Daddy to get packed up in time so he doesn't get soaked. Daddy makes it just in time; the boy cheers.
We sit on the concrete steps of the boathouse together, watching the storm. We've missed our window to get home before it hits. Lightning rips across the sky, my boy tenses in my lap. I hug him tight. It's cold now; I wrap his scary-shark beach towel around both of us for warmth. He says, "Thank you Mommy. Hold me tighter."
The rain lets up enough for us to try to make it home--it's blowing back out over the lake. We mount our bikes--mine red and white, a vintage Schwinn with a white basket on front and a fender, like the one I had as a child but bigger--and head down the path to home. The golf course is empty now. A man walks by in the opposite direction dressed completely in white, with gloves to match. We coast downhill. We get to the underpass, cross under Lake Shore Drive, make a few turns and we're home.
Upstairs, we pull the big black leather chair around to face the window, ottoman too, and curl up to watch the storm. I teach him how to count the space between the lightning and the thunder. One one thousand, two one thousand, three-- the counting makes him sleepy. I gather his blankie and put him down for a nap. He doesn't resist.
We try to watch a movie. A friend from our theatre days is in it and he's great, but the movie is unbearably sad. I move to the bedroom to read but instead open the window so I can hear the rain and I lie there, looking west, thinking about nothing. A luxury.
From my pillow, I can see the fire escapes of several buildings that back up to ours. Occasionally someone will come out onto one of the black iron landings--a man smoking, a woman dumping out the ice from a party--and I think how much these highrises resemble nothing more than ant farms, all the tiny creatures faithfully going about their daily chores. It makes me wonder about earthquakes: how something could pick us all up and shake us out of our homes, fill every crevice with sand.
How long until all the little tunnels would appear again?
How long until we'd walk over to our neighbors with our buckets and plastic dumptrucks and say hi, can i help you build?
I fall asleep thinking of ants and have vivid dreams of jungles, dragonflies, and South American dialects. I awake, craving mangoes and the smell of cigars. I read. I cook dinner. I fold laundry. I think of my grandfathers, who fought in different wars, and their lives before and after those wars; how my life is easier. How lucky I am.
I find my shoes by the front door and I shake out the sand.
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