The Last Trip

Yesterday was my own "walk down memory lane" so to speak. I went to Cherokee sink with Marquesas and Shelley. It was so different from five years ago, no longer as wild and uncivilized. I taught a good friend to swim there, and we went four or more times a week, very early before the sun was up. On those morning it had the feel of an undiscovered paradise, and it felt like it was mine, all mine. Yesterday there were boardwalks and a diving platform, an area had been fenced off, and there were signs about no food. So different. We sat on our blanket, and ate our donuts in defiance, and talking about how different all our lives were. As usual, I was the first (and as it happened, the only) to climb down into the water. As I swam my traditional lap across, I didn't get the usual feeling of power and control, instead I felt small and alone. I've become too grown up, my last shreds of fearlessness have faded. I thought about Faiyaz, and Anjali, and the morning they were having without me. I thought about our move, and how sad it was that even though I hadn't come here in years, I soon wouldn't be able to come again. Swimming back to the rock where Marquesas and Shelley sat, I tried to think of how many times we had come here together, and found them too numerous to recall. I want to go to all my old haunts, to Five Holes, and to Blue Springs, and the Swanee river in Madison, I want to camp at St. George again, I want to relive all of those memories before I'm too far away to do so. I know that, somewhere in Virginia, there's a lake or pond or something where I will one day go with Anjali, and teach her to swim, and that will be her special place. I know there are beaches up there, and state parks, and lots of adventures just waiting for my family. I know that those memories will be just as dear, or more so, and they'll be our memories. I know this is right for our family, but at the same time I find myself clinging to here. The days are counting down, and I've got to let go...just like I let go of the rocks yesterday, and let my body slip into the water despite it's morning chill.