My life is cozy. My street is quiet, and the only visible signs of tension are, in fact, signs: signs for Black Lives Matter, signs with black flags demanding "support" for police, signs for the disaster president and signs for Biden/Harris (there seem to be more of those every day, which is bolstering). Work is steady and seems stable, at least for now; my kid isn't in school but seems to be okay, and I get to see my parents. We are getting through the days. So much of this summer (the part within the circle of our family life) has been beautiful. And yet—and yet—coddled as I am, safe, spared from real awfulness, I'm moving through the days disoriented. Though the people and places in front of me look more or less the same, I can't shake the sense that everything has been nudged out of place and nothing is quite where it used to be.
Sometime in July, Hugh and I started spending every Friday at the lake. Mostly, we dig through banks of pebbles, looking for bits of weathered glass, periwinkles' pinstriped whorls, stones particularly pleasing in shape or hue, the secret patternings of fossils. Sometimes we just sit and watch the boats cross the horizon, or look at the clouds and the waves. I've become a beach maximalist and load up a collapsible wagon with folding wooden chairs and piles of towels and garden trowels and dry clothes and a sun tent and snacks to pull over the boardwalk and drag through the sand, so we stay as long as we want. My mom meets us sometimes, and when she does, I swim. Those moments in the water slap me back into myself, and as long as I am in the lake, the things of the world are in places I can understand.
Last Friday, the air was cold, and the waves were forbiddingly frothy. We dug our pebble holes, wrapped up in blankets and sipped hot broth, felt the spray on our faces and the damp in our socks. I didn't get to go in, but tomorrow, we'll go back. For a little while yet, the water will hold the warmth of the late-summer sun. I hope I can sneak in one more swim.
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Patagonia swimsuit (best thing I purchased this summer; not available anymore, I don't think) / Black & Blum lunch box / Stanley thermos / Battenwear mesh tote / Filson wool cap / Champion x The Met sweatshirt (second-best thing I purchased this summer) / Casio B650WD-1A watch / Missoni plaid blanket / Tevas / ragg socks.
Not pictured: heavy sweatpants and Voortman's sugar wafers.
