What the wind blew in (L)

I'm sitting on my bed in an empty house. The wind has suddenly quieted, building up again for another roll across the tall grass out my window, laying it down in ripples like moving water. The sky is blue, the sun bright, the birds and insects of summer have crawled out to sound their approval. I am following through on my intent to write without editing without regard, to keep our blog alive, and to keep part of me alive, too.

Days like this bring back childhood memories of Maine. They call up ghosts of my grandmother, my aunt, and now my mother. Drawing them back to the sun, back to the wild blueberry fields, freshly mowed lawns by grills, the sloping grass of Walker Park, the dirt road that dusted my grandmother's green grass as we ran paths through it. When C and I first moved back to Maine, I was nearly suffocated by the ache of my yearning for those days. I'd drive to my mother's and aunt's for fresh fuel to keep the fires of my burning nostalgia for those days, for my grandmother. Somehow it seemed if the bittersweet was acute enough, I could somehow conjure up a portal in time to step back to those days of my long brown legs running free beneath a bathing suit, eyes squinting up into a camera.

When I had my children, I'd whisper the stories in their ears, hoping they could continue to chant my spell for resurrection after me. I'm sure I lost some of the moments of their sunny young days as they seemed to pale in comparison to the memories of mine. After all, there is no go greater power of summer memories than summers not spent at home. You can't recreate the magic of parents not being at the table they write bills at all year, next to the phone that can break the spell of a perfect summer moment to jar you back to reality.

There was no sound that could compete with the laughter of my mother and grandmother mingling together over a deck of cards. Though I think some of the power of our summertime happiness was created by the dark lonely shade of the rest of our lives.
In Maine, we had cousins and family and, somehow, money for ice cream. My mother never resisted buying my father as much beer as he could drink. My mother didn't yell, my father didn't snap, I wasn't hit by flying objects meant for one of them. They went fishing together instead. There was peace.

Now, I don't hunger for those days as much. I watch the wind rolling the grass as it used to in the fields out back of my grandmother's house. I feel a twinge, the wisps of an old spell settle in me to write. But nothing like the pining I had before my mother died. Maybe it's because that old pining brought me to my mother for more memories, for salve on my wounded yearning heart. Now it can only bring me to graves. The kids have tired of the drives past all my heart landmarks. They will either remember my songs, or they won't. I feel a lot less yearning these days. I don't know if I'm jaded or wise. But I'm leaving this writing now, posting it without re-reading, so I can go join my kids at our cottage on a sunny day. I feel a renewed charge to give them something more than whispers of memories, to try and give them some of their own days of shining peace.