“When I stand alone with the earth and sky a feeling of something in me going off in every direction into the unknown of infinity means more to me than any thing any organized religion gives me.”

~ Georgia O’Keeffe

It rained last night, making my walk gorgeous. It was a morning of finding picture after picture that intrigued and delighted me. The fern and the lady slipper, the inked brook ripple, the weed in the Charles, the designs int he rock, the moss and the wintergreen berry, and the wild apple blossoms, rain-dropped and lushly bending over the pine needled trail. It was supposed to thunderstorm in the afternoon. Instead, the temperature rose to summer and the sun beamed. I had two writing coaching clients, and our time revising their writing was rich and well spent. My daughters decided to seize the sunny weather and go to Farm Pond after lunch. Tired of my computer, by then, I changed an appointment, jumped into my bathing suit, and set off with them through the woods to walk to my friend’s house and her dock at Farm Pond. As we walked along in the summery heat I had a flash of memory: I feel like I’m walking with my sisters, I said out loud. We were three girls, and we walked so many places together in summer. Since both girls are here in the house these weeks, we get to walk together like this, and I feel like a girl again. I took one photo on the way: the leaves shadowing the rock on the pine needles. We walked through my friend’s gorgeous mossy garden in the shade, lush with flowers and ferns and lily of the valley. Then we descended her stone steps. The pond. And our determination to be in it. I dove first, a freezing thrill. Tolerably very cold! Then the girls followed, one by one. I jumped out and felt the delicious rush of my temperature adjusting. In for a second, and a third. Yes. Summer has now begun. My daughter, Franci, made a video of our first swim. You can watch it here.