Dandelions and Daydreams

Our Sunday afternoon walk took us down to the shoals–my own personal water park.

My family first discovered the shoals when I was about five. We had started building my parents house. It was summer and it was stinking hot. Our house was just a concrete slab with cinder walls slowly going up. Air conditioner was still a long ways off. Many hot afternoons were spent playing in these waters.

On the far side of the creek, the current was faster. There was a groove cut in the rock that made a splendid water slide. A mountain laurel branch hung low over the water at the bottom of the slide. You had to lay back to slide under it or risk getting a face full of branches and leaves.

I had a deep fear of this rock when I was a kid–or rather what might be lurking under the rock. That was the “deep end” of the pool beneath the shoals. It was probably 2 1/2 or 3 feet deep at its deepest, and I was sure an alligator lived under that rock.

I’m sure the idea was originally planted by my brother. My fear of that rock continued on long after I knew that alligators didn’t live in North Georgia. Then I was certain that there would be a copperhead or a water moccasin laying in wait for me there should I venture into the deep end of the pool.

The water is only a couple of inches deep there now, but that rock still seems menacing. I’m sure I would still avoid splashing near it if I were to swim in the shoals now.

Down stream, the neighbors had built a zip line across the creek using a cable and some old bicycle handlebars. When the spring rains came, the normally quiet, placid creek would turn into a raging, rolling monster. We would have our annual wake-boarding event taking advantage of the high waters and fast current. We tied an old ski rope off to one of the trees along the banks and take turns wake-boarding in the rushing waters. It was quite a thrill, but if you ever fell off, you might have to walk a mile down stream to retrieve the wake-board.

Every good water park has souvenirs that you can take home with you, and ours was no exception.  Rather than overpriced plastic and funny hats, we had to go hunt for our souvenirs, but they were free.

Heavy rains would churn up bits of broken pottery, remains of the time when the Cherokee Indians camped along the banks of Rock Creek every summer.

My brother, Jesse, was the one who had a natural talent for finding Indian pottery.  He would be wading along picking up rocks and skipping them when he would say, “look at this piece of pottery.”  The secret to finding pottery is not to look for it.

At the end of the day, we would stuff our pockets with pottery and rocks and hike the mile or so back up to our house (building site).  Years later, we have buckets of quartz rocks picked up on hikes down to the shoals, and quite a bit of pottery reminding us of summer afternoons in Rock Creek.

I slipped into my assigned seat and buckled my seat belt. The day was still young and flight 766 out of Spokane would be leaving the ground in the midst of snowflakes and thick fog. I sat back in my seat to catch a nap while waiting for takeoff. When my plane finally landed in Atlanta many hours later, I picked up my baggage and waited for Mom and Dad to pick me up.

The transformation overtook me when Mom got out of the truck and gave me a big “Welcome Home” hug. No matter how old I get, whenever I come home to mom, I’m just her little girl who needs to be taken care of. Likewise, no matter how big her babies are, Mom always switches back into “mom mode” when we are home.

This is probably a universal thing. It’s why whenever grandma came to visit she spent her time washing clothes and mating socks. Mothers are always mothers and children are always children.

I confess that since Brenton is still in Idaho for the week, I am quite content with the idea of being a little kid for the week. I can chase butterflies and hike to all my childhood haunts. The daffodils are blooming here. This has always been my favorite time of year.

I was out shopping for a few items for my upcoming trip when I overheard a woman in her mid 40’s talking to a guy in his mid 20’s.  They looked like a mother and son.  The two were out shopping for an Easter present for a girl.

The mom said, “Pretend you are a girl.  What would you like for Easter?”

Her son thought carefully about the question before shrugging his shoulders and saying, “A rifle.”

Happy Easter Y’all.

I crawled into bed at 2:37 a.m. and did my best not to wake Brenton up. He grunted a half-awake, “good morning” in my direction.

“Brenton, I’m afraid I have a book problem,” I confessed to him quietly.

My bedtime didn’t start at 2:30 a.m. Actually it started at about 10 p.m. as we wound down the day, turned off the lights, and Brenton promptly fell asleep. I on the other hand, was wide awake. After tossing and turning in bed for an hour, I decide to sneak out to the couch and read a bit.

The book I picked up to start was Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness by Pete Fromm. It’s a wilderness adventure tale written by a man who spent an Idaho winter living in a canvas tent courtesy of the Idaho Fish and Game department.

Four hours later, I closed the cover on the last page of the book and forced myself to crawl back into bed. My head was swimming with visions of living in a tent in the Idaho wilderness.

We might do it too if I could just figure out the logistics of Brenton showering for work and getting power for my laptop computer. Brenton says they have showers at work (or at the gym), and a solar panel would do quite nicely to power my laptop. Hmmm…

But I digress.

“They” always say the first step to overcoming a problem is admitting that you have one, but what if I don’t want to overcome the problem? I guess I’ll worry about that later, I have a book calling me now.

Brenton and I went for a drive after dinner to take in the picturesque sunset. This winter was…long…to say the least, and ever since the time change we have had an hour of sunshine after he gets off from work. Sunset tonight was picture perfect, but I had to memorize it by heart because I didn’t have my camera with me.

It’s good to be reminded of the things that inspire me the most. Nature is my inspiration. My spirit needs fresh air and wilderness as much as my body needs food and water, and the colors tonight were hand painted by God.

As we drove along the river, I drank in the lavender and orange sunset splashed against a pale blue, turquoise (In the Tiffany’s version of the color) sky. The snow on the mountain tops reflected back pink splotched with evergreens so darkly colored that they looked black against all the pastel beauty.

As we drove, I admired all the beauty and prayed for a house in the country.