It is quiet at my parents' house. Outside, that is. Huddled in a warm hooded sweatshirt and surrounded by a blanket, I sit on their back deck in crisp morning air. Alone.
I listen to birds twittering and calling and take pause when they fly to the bird feeders just feet away from where I sit. Chickadees and finches flit quickly about. My parents live on ten acres and I look forward into a wooded area.
Rest. Peace. Quiet. I find myself thinking of them often, longing for them, writing of them. Probably because with four kids under six years old, I don't have much quiet or rest. Sometimes I find myself anxious for the days when my kids are older - teenagers who sleep in, and I have the opportunity to wake up and drink a cup of chai by myself.
As I stare at the yard and the grass so green in April, I can already imagine summer visits here. I can visualize Ellie in a sundress - how she loves dresses right now - running like the tornado she is, barefoot through the grass. I can see the bruises and scrapes covering the legs of little adventurous boys, telltale markings of summer. Dirty feet and knees and fingernails. Skin kissed by the sun. Ezekiel learning to crawl and discovering this new outdoor land.
The land I grew up on myself. Running in and between clothes drying on a long line stretched between two posts. Gleeful shrieks coming from four-wheeler rides with Grandpa. Adventure walks back into the woods. I should take them on a picnic back there this year. Running after bubbles and through sprinklers and falling onto soft green blades of mowed grass.
Soon my own childhood memories mix with my visions of future moments with my children and I see them juxtaposed. It stops me and I think of how I enjoyed being a kid in the summer. How I have days when I long to go back. And it hits me that so many days I want life to speed up to get to "easier times and ages" of the kids and I realize -
Why would I want to wish these away for them?
