Planting the seeds

I’m smiling.

Well, I could be smiling.

That’s what it looks like from the outside, anyway.

Check my Instagram. You'll get Insta-Envy. 

My lips are drawn up at the edges. The skin over my cheeks is tight. The chords of my neck are visible if not awkwardly pronounced. This chicken neck is a new and troubling development. As soon as the autumn winds clear out my summer closet, I will have to dig out a scarf.

I get sidetracked easily.

You can tell by the open dishwasher in the kitchen and the piles of laundry in the living room. I had started loading one machine, but then a buzzer summoned me to unload the other.

But I can’t be certain which alert sound came from where.

It shouldn’t matter. I can’t remember the last time I did laundry. Yesterday I climbed a mountain. Today I’m on a beach. 

My children have leashes tying surfboards to their ankles. For the few hours we are here, we will pretend we can conquer an ocean.

We should be happy.

They shouldn’t be bickering.

I should have rest-fortified patience.

But I don't. Any patience I had has been replaced by irritation, sleep deprivation, and a touch of Insta-envy. I miss the days when the children were young and the sleep I lost I'd assumed I'd find again one day. 

Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong.

My face hurts.

Am I smiling? I might be. I lose myself to scowling more often than I tend to imagine.

You can’t see my eyes behind the dark sunglasses. Ray-bans that came in on the tide one summer’s-leaving morning, which I’ve managed to hold onto however many summers have come and gone since they washed up on the beach.

My right hand raises to touch one of the arms that loops the shades over my ears. I make an imaginary adjustment. The sunglasses sit perfectly straight on my less than symmetrical face.

I wonder for a moment if this is theft by finding. Or merely salvaging joy.

My left hand clenches. Fingernails press into the palm making shallow, crescent-shaped trenches. Impressions that will go away once I relax.

If I can will it to happen.

That’s one of the problems.

I can’t relax. I can’t loosen my grip on expectations. I can't just breathe.

I have the feeling, without any evidence to the contrary, that I can't fix what has broken, and I can’t push any of the debris from my mind. There is danger in thinking any of it is beyond repair.

This is unnecessary stress.

I know this.

Small disappointments are only magnified by dwelling on them.

And small disappointments are everywhere a person can dwell these days.

Especially on vacation.

I am thankful it's almost time to pack up and return home. I'm ready for the mountains of laundry that will have smuggled buckets of sand. As I go through the pockets, I will find a few treasures from the sea: some beach glass, or a mollusk shell of some indeterminate genus.

For now, I will add them to a jar that contains 15 years worth of “joy.”

When I am ready to see it, I know these artifacts will be the seeds of memories that will take root for next year's holiday.