Scout Moves

My hair goes wild when I go swimming. My daughter tells me. Mom, she says, your hair is pretty, and she means it isn’t. My hair goes wild when I go swimming. If you swim with me, pretend you don't see. At summer camp, mixed swimming was forbidden. Boys and girls in the water boil up a summer soup of trouble. Boys and girls might think things under water's murky cover. Might see shapes dripping with sunlight as they step onto shore. Might go wild. Might pretend they didn’t. Then who would know if they were bad, the boys and girls? My hair goes wild when I go swimming. If you swim with me, pretend you don't see. Tell me it’s pretty, and I'll pretend that's true.

We walked at the park today. We pass the playground, circle the pond, up the hill, down the road to the school where the seventh-grade band plays. Their march tune leaks through the door seams. At midday, joggers tracing their routes, fishermen casting for catch and release, boisterous boys chasing mothers on short legs. The train whistle we hear is the sound of commerce passing through without stopping. And the small-engine-putter we hear is the sound of regular maintenance— an earnest woman rides a tractor to cut the grass. She rounds the ball diamonds and turns on a dime. Sniff the tree trunks, sniff the tall grass, sniff the dirt clumps left by muddy tires. We follow the creek and aim for the car.

March's version of spring was no lion and it was no lamb. It was a hybrid, a beast with great slapping paws dressed in heavy boots so you could hear it coming up the stairs. It flung open the doors, threw back its head and bellowed, "WELL, HELLOOOOO!" Then it settled down for a nap under blue and soft white, just the sky a beast would request for napping if it could. It breathed slow and steady as it rested, and its fur, all green grass and pink buds, rippled with the warm breeze. Every day this happened, and I worried the surprise beast would up and run. And now it has, taking its careless panting and clunky shoes into hiding.

I have always said this— I love the change of seasons. And I mean it. But just now I am clinging to Summer by its ankles as it pivots toward the door and leaves the room. Wait! Don't go yet! I call as I tighten my grip around its shin bone, and it pulls me across the floor, bunching up the summer rug beneath me, the green grass, snapdragons and sprawled out oregano now in folds. It's about to drag me through crunchy leaves and spiked acorns and withering herbs. So I plant my feet flatly against the door frame, knees locked and jaw set, as Summer shrugs and shakes me off with a fling of its foot. And empty handed, I reach out with splayed fingers, and I shout one last time, Wait! Not yet! Just one more day. Last week, Ohio experienced one of the hottest days of the summer, and then the next day we woke up to autumn with fall temperatures and rain and cloudy skies, and the forecast for the forseable future seems destined to plow straight ahead with no lookin...

Note: Photo added after Dive's comment. This is GF Handel's monument at Westminster Abbey. I used this phrase yesterday, “Too fat for my French horn,” and it made me laugh out loud. I know it’s rude to laugh at your own jokes, but I was surprised when the words came out as if someone else had typed them, and I couldn’t help my reaction. I was thinking about how physically sluggish I have become and how I probably need a little exercise. Plus, I have noticed that when playing my French horn, I need to take breaths more often than I used to. My lung capacity doesn’t seem to be what it once was, so I suggested I might be too fat for my French horn. See, even repeating it here makes me giggle. I like the alliteration, and I think the phrase is almost poetic. So, in the interest of poetry: I am too fat for my French horn, too burdened on the lungs to inhale and exhale enough. I breathe just enough but want more, to breathe more. I am too fat for the swings at the park ...