brief recollection...

Something I once wrote, and never sent - moments pass as we think about things... hesitate...

I remember the ephemeral moment we shared months after Prudence died, up at Timothy Lake. The kind man with the kayak offering us the use of it, right there out of the blue. It was clean and pure, unexpected. You paddled, I paddled. We were alone on the clear waters of the mountain lake, nothing but joy and air and mountains and long ago flooded stumps beneath us in the crystal waters. We had a chance to know another life, however fleetingly. We worked in tandem, in partnership. We were together, you and I. Just the two of us. I had wished it were our kayak, our life, not just a sample of ‘what coulda been’ with us. Yet, I was so happy to have known that afternoon with you in the wake of Prudence’s death. A brief respite from grief, from rain, from the endless routine of self-examination, relationship deconstruction, battling hidden demons of family conflict, struggling with the ever-present, lingering wars of interpretation of my mother’s energies and influence (what of your father’s, I wonder now?). None of it mattered for a little while. Just the freedom, the break in dullness, the song of the kayak - that’s all that mattered. I loved the joy in your face, the incredulousness of our luck. It was a gift. From a heartbroken man who had enough heart left to show generosity to two people, two strangers, who (on the surface) represented a love he, himself, was missing. I shared in your compassion for him as he later told us his story.
Despite everything, we are a couple of people with soft hearts, Trisha. You and I.