16 or 17 years: After many hours around the campfire we set off down the lush summertime sandstone valley on the tracks, quiet and happy. Gradually light creeps into the canyon and I wake up as if into a soft dream..
18 years: Standing on the patio in the pale dawn light, Fisherman and I hear a thump on the driveway. It startles us both and we look at each other for a moment and I don’t now remember which of us realizes it first, maybe simultaneously, that it is the Sunday newspaper…
Also 18 years, train tracks again: Fourth of July weekend, a friend is departing for an Arctic canoe trip. We wander the county all night and end up on the tracks that run along his property line, sitting on the rails, throwing rocks, talking quietly as the dawn demands…
20 years: The sun rises in pink and purple over the far shore of a lake in Wisconsin. She and I sit on the wooden planks at the end of the dock and watch the lake and sky drip color. When it is again more blue than anything else, we go in and sleep past noon…
22 and 26 years: I-90 en route to Bozeman. Preferred, proven strategy of leaving Minnesota in the evening, driving the night through, then the sun coming up behind and the mountains ahead…
25 years: An unending nocturnal game of bocce ball on a lake in northern Wisconsin, plodding laps around the cabin, the lake gradually revealed in shades of gray, hues of red. After, in the first hour of light, we cast crankbaints off the dock and land the only two walleye of the weekend in the span of 15 minutes…
Really cool! I enjoyed this. What will 28and 30 years be?