River Poetry

There's a certain poetry that happens by a river in a mountain on a hot Saturday in June.


There's something in the low murmur of voices, of conversations that leave you feeling contented, even though you aren't part of them and you can't really hear what's being said.

There's something in the stillness of the water, in how one tiny fish making one tiny jump can send ripples that radiate the width of the river. Practically.




There's something in the slow swing of a hammock, something in the way your man-child's bare feet stick out over the edge.



There's something in the glint of copper in your daughter's hair as the evening sun hits it in just the perfect spot, something about the way her smile makes your heart swell, and you know she's going to be OK.

There's something in the memory of how you've done this dozens of times in this life, how you've gone from bags of towels, swimsuits, sunscreen, goggles, floaties, Goldfish, velcroed sandals, juice boxes, buckets and diggers, extra clothes to just a bucket of fried chicken, a few chairs, a couple of hammocks, and the quiet poetry of voices, river, birds.

Linked up with Wordless Wednesday and Outdoor Wednesday

Hike 100: Cucumber Gap Trail

My guys are doing spring break with their Boy Scout troop in the Okefenokee Swamp, and my girl is on a mission trip in Mexico during her spring break, but I at least got to get a good hike in with friends.

I'm working on the Smokies Centennial Challenge, with a goal of hiking 100 miles in the Smokies in 2016. We needed a relatively easy trail, as we had a few younger kids and uncertain moms on the hike. The Cucumber Gap Trail at Elkmont was absolutely perfect. It's one of the few trails in the Smokies that is actually flat. I don't even know how that's possible, but it is—and it follows the river the entire time, which is always a bonus with kids.

The trail is an easy—and I do mean easy—2.4 miles. We turned around at the junction and headed back. I'd like to do this trail again in early June when the rhododendrons are flowering.

My total trial miles now are 9— I have a long way to go but still 9 months ahead, and the best hiking seasons yet to come!

Linked up with Outdoor Wednesday and Wordless Wednesday

Ice and Snow and 49

My birthday arrived with ice and cold. This is why, growing up in upstate New York, we had "winter break" always during Presidents' Day week. Somebody smart knew that it was better all around to head to Florida for a week in midwinter.

But I am loving this birthday week here, when everything is cancelled. No classes, no church, no swimming. Nowhere to go except snuggled under a blanket, puttering around in the kitchen, playing games with my kids.

I couldn't have asked for a better birthday present than an unexpectedly quiet day, dinner with my family, the most beautiful words in a card from my daughter, and chocolate cake with very thick icing.

This is the kind of February I like.

Well, for a few days anyway. And then those daffodils can bravely attempt another blooming.

Linked up with Wordless Wednesday and Outdoor Wednesday

How to do life

Sometimes there is a sky so perfectly blue that I just want to wrap up in it, or drink it.

Sometimes the light hits the mountains in such a way that the trees glow, and I think about dreams and fairies and poetry and when my children were little and how sometimes I want to lose myself in those mountains.

Sometimes I walk the graveyard of an old church and think about all those broken hearts and those long lives and the really short ones, and I wish my mother would stop talking about where their burial plots are, and at the same time I'm glad she doesn't mind talking about it.

Because these two.

 

These two are my link to everything, my past and my future and my now. And every single time I make room for a day like this, I am simultaneously filled with joy and filled with dread, because this could be the last day like this with them. 

And how will that ever work? How will I navigate a world without being able to reach out and hold my mother's sweet, crooked hand and smooth down her beautifully soft hair? And how will I ever, ever, ever go the rest of my life without my father's gentle smile and his freckled knees?

I can't help but think of these things, even on a day like this—or maybe I think of things like this precisely because of a day like this, when my mother sighs a deep, deep sigh of joy and says, "I will always remember this perfect day, even if I don't have long to remember it."

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Firsts and Lasts

 My last child's first day of high school.

 She and her first best friend and their  first day of senior year.

Their last first-day picture together.

Her first day of college classes (biology and German at our local private college)

My first child's first apartment. 

Not the last time they'll look at me and say "Are you seriously taking a picture of us?"

Linked up with Wordless Wednesday and with the Weekly Wrap-up

In the Smokies: Abrams Falls

Astoundingly, I've lived just outside the Smokies for 15 years, and this was my first trip to Abrams Falls. Randy has been lots of times, and the kids have been there, but somehow I never made it until this past weekend.

It is lovely to wake up on a Saturday and realize that you have absolutely nothing that must be done and nowhere to go. Naturally, we had to go hiking. We wanted some water to play in on this hike, so we chose Abrams Falls.

We usually try to avoid popular tourist spots on Saturdays in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but you have to go through Cades Cove to get to Abrams Falls. To get there, you drive about halfway around the cove, and there will be a dirt road on the right that leads right to the Abrams Falls parking lot. (There is a rustic bathroom there if you need one.)

Strangely, the Cove wasn't bumper-to-bumper traffic, and we only hit one short traffic jam. The parking lot at Abrams Falls was packed, though, and the trail was busy. It's a nice 5-mile hike roundtrip, not too strenuous but with lots of ups and downs. Much of the trail is rocky, so pay attention or you may twist an ankle or trip. Along the way there is plenty of water to play in, in case you only want to hike a short way and then do river play.

Within the first few years that we lived here, there were a couple of drownings at Abrams Falls. In particular I remember a middle-school boy on a field trip drowning there. So very tragic. There are strict warnings posted by the falls that it is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO SWIM at the base of the falls due to strong currents and an undertow. Nonetheless, upon arriving at the falls we had to witness at least a dozen people jumping off the falls, including a man who took his kids (10 and under) up to jump. All you can really do is shake your head and say "What is wrong with people???"

We spent a good hour or even two just wading, skipping rocks, and snacking. And, well, also watching people. The water was lovely and not too cold, and the falls, while not one of the more majestic falls in the Smokies, is just so pretty.

The hike took us an hour each way at a moderate pace. Actually, I'm pretty sure Randy would say it was a leisurely hike, but for me, it was a moderate pace. We will definitely be going back; this is a great hike for families with slightly older kids who can hike 5 miles.

 

Just please: don't jump off the waterfall.

Linked up with Outdoor Wednesday and Wordless Wednesday

In Just Spring

Everything is flowering, about to flower, or just finishing up flowering here in East Tennessee. My backyard is like a fairy land, bursting with purples and pinks with a few dashes of yellow and white, all smothered in green. It's hard to resist the urge to join the dog rolling around in the grass. I only resist because of the itchiness.

And so today, some flowers, a few faces and a poem. 

Today 

By Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze  

 

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb, 

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight 

 

that you felt like taking 

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table, 

 releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage  

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting 

into this larger dome of blue and white, 

 

well, today is just that kind of day.

Linked up on Wordless Wednesday and Outdoor Wednesday

See poem in one place here