Sunday afternoon, in the quiet of the church, Paul and I work together packing up the remnants of our spring student cello recital. As with most good things in life, we are, simultaneously, exhausted and exhilarated. I fold up the card table that held the graduation/happy recital cake and stack sticky paper cups used for lemonade. We walk up and down the center isle and collect discarded programs.
Our truck is full, doors are locked: we head to the quiet of home.
Three days later our family begins to arrive. It is a summer tradition for our oldest son and his daughter to spend two weeks with us before his wife flies in and we all head to the lake for a week. I make up guest-room beds and wander the isles of the grocery store looking for favorite foods. We mow pasture and weed garden, knowing there will be little time spent on such chores once everyone arrives. The car pulls up and we hurry outside. Bronte, unsure of what she is excited about, gallops along beside us to greet. There is a burst of excitement as car doors open, embraces that begin from our souls, and quick tours of every corner of the farm and house so as to familiarize themselves once again and be sure nothing has changed.
Each day we adventure. Emerson and I wander Shelburne museum. We watch the woman demonstrate old set-type printing presses and collect sheets that are warm with still-damp ink. We run up the ramp to the Ticonderoga Ferryboat that is dry-docked at the museum. We lean over the rail and Emerson tosses a toy to the grass down below, over and over again, pretending it is water. Laughing, we climb onto brightly colored wood horses on the carousel and spin.
It is hot and we swim in the Mad River three days straight. Laying our towels on the shore, which is covered in rocks rubbed smooth by the water, we lay flat and see the bright sunshine through our closed eyelids. We float down the river and laugh when our bums bump large rocks. Filling a small backpack with flat stones that we will later sit in the kitchen and paint.
Our son Ethan flies in from California and we sit on the deck, stretching out our legs. Josh pulls up in his truck and we have three of our four sons together. I sit quietly and watch them quickly fall back into familiar laughter and banter. I put out large Caesar salads with cold shrimp cocktails and we break bread that I have made. Looking at them laughing around the table, I both see them as children and enjoy them as adults, like meshing two separate worlds.
I stay up into the night, tired from the day but knowing this stillness is my time to ready for things to come.
Ethan lifts into the sky and away from us again. He circles over the green of the mountains and returns to the sand of California just a day before Emerson’s mom arrives.
Paul makes fruit smoothies each morning and I mash green avocado with a fork to serve on toast with a still- warm egg from our hens. Emerson pulls on the pink farm boots I have bought for her and shows her mom the sheep and new chicks she is in charge of. She is proud and knowledgeable as she holds one of the tiny Wayandottes.
We load three cars and descend on the local grocery store, filling our carts with summer food; glass bottles of pale yellow lemonade, blocks of cheese, ingredients for ice cream making and bags of shelled peanuts that we will crunch between our teeth while playing cards each evening. Josh and Al join us and make homemade pizza for all. We sit together, a citronella candle in the middle of the picnic table warding off mosquitoes. The lake lies flat, smooth as glass in front of us. We hear a loon call from the far end of the pond where the tall pines are so beautiful they seem to be a watercolor. I feel full, and it is not just pizza.
Our second oldest, Jesse, comes to join from North Carolina. They have landed in Boston and taken in a baseball game before heading to the lake. There are twelve smiling faces as we celebrate “everyone’s-birthday.” We spoon out coffee/toffee ice cream that Paul has made to applause. Everyone blows out candles on mini cupcakes and we celebrate each other.
Everyone leaves and we are back on the farm. We put away the swimming noodles and ice cream maker. We peel off bathing suits and pull on overalls.
One evening after a late dinner, we walk down to our pasture, long after the sheep have been brought up to the barn for the night. We stand quietly in the field, holding hands. The air is thick around us and is filled with fireflies. There is no moon and they seem so bright against the black of the night.
I watch as they blink, each pattern individual, each pattern intended for another.
We are in the center of an almost strobe effect as they call to each other, some from near, some from far away, knowing, without words, how to find the ones they love.