#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

How could I not have packed shorts? Charlie and I walked in the early morning. Not as early as it seemed. The hours turned back. Finally, a decent night sleep. But now the special one has the bug. Charlie is lagging. He is eleven. Perhaps I am simply expecting too much. I make sure he gets time off the pavement, plenty of it, in the thick fallen leaves, the privacy and lively bird-quiet of the path along the Charles. I get my Writing Prompt blog sent after my walk and feel productive. The best part of the day yet to come: we drive home and my daughter and I walk to Farm Pond. In shorts. And bathing suits, and towels. My youngest will come separately, meet us there. This is the most important thing I want to do today, I tell Frank. Living around so much pavement, even though this area is well landscaped, and there are many interesting, healthy trees, there is still a preponderance of metal and pavement, trucks and industry. And my hotel room has two tiny windows overlooking the parked cars, and won’t open far enough for me to have any breeze enter. I need to have my body immersed in nature. Cold water. We get to beach and we see a swimmer in front of us, just arriving back from a swim, lifting his head, standing up, and before he is fully standing I see who it is: my brother, of course. We have a cheerful hello. Now there is absolutely no holding me back I will have a decent swim. And I do. And, yes, it’s achingly, numbingly cold. But I get a fine stroke going and I have a good time in the cold for around ten minutes. Both my daughters do the same. We are shivering, shivering, shivering on shore. My brother takes this picture of me and my daughters: one sitting, already drying, on the bench, one about to start her swim. And me in the middle, shivering with pleasure. Just what my body mind and spirt needed.