Summer’s here and it seems like the days should be taken advantage of, used and grabbed up quickly in handfuls of happiness, before the days slip away like grains of sand in an hourglass.
It is a sad but true fact, that all too quickly, the season, for all its lush beauty and fragile good looks, can disappear in a blinding snowstorm, hidden once again under the bleak harshness of winter.
I love the way summer arrives.
It’s not like it makes a big announcement. It’s more like simply waking up one morning and being surprised at what happened while you were sleeping.
Branches heavy with fragrant lilac blossoms, grass so green it shimmers in the sunshine, and roses, shy, gentle roses playing with the wind in roadside ditches are all over the place.
But for me at least, driving back and forth to work, simply absorbing all this amazing beauty through my cracked windshield is not enough.
I want more.
I want to do stuff.
I want to golf. I want to tee up my golf ball and feel the satisfying smack of the ball as it sails into the air, finally landing impossibly close to the green.
Okay. I would be happy to walk down the fairway, feeling the happy face of the sun smiling all over me. A good shot is a bonus and an excellent shot is a fantasy. Just being out there playing means I’m in the game, not on the sidelines and that is quite good enough for me.
I want to play ball. I want to stand at home plate and hear the staccato smack of the bat as it connects with a ball that goes flying way out past the centre fielder.
Okay, I would be happy with a plastic bat and a few grandchildren on my team in the middle of a field somewhere yelling ‘hit it, grandma’.
But, seriously, even though fantasy and reality are usually quite a distance from each other, summer is a time to play in the huge playground Mother Nature has obligingly lent to us for a very short time.
Last Wednesday I did just that. I did more than talk the talk. I walked the walk.
I went golfing.
“I golfed with your brother years ago,” the guy at the counter said. “He was a very good golfer.”
I smile.
My brother was a good golfer, I muse. I had golfed with him at this very course, but I don’t remember his awesome shots on the fairway or his great putting skill on the green.
I just remember being perfectly and absolutely happy because the two of us had sliced out a piece of a summer’s day to not do very much at all but have fun.
I liked being with my brother and if I could have one minute of that day back again, I would, in a heartbeat.
I think about this as I watch my daughter come up to the clubhouse lugging her clubs in a faded pink bag.
“I got them for $5 at a garage sale,” she said with a shy smile. “The bag was included.”
And so it began.
The game.
We didn’t talk much. We didn’t have to.
The sun was happy and so were we.
And once again I was grateful for one moment in time granted me to be with someone I loved, just laughing, playing and hanging out.
It was great, actually it was better than great. It was perfect!
Even though she beat me!
ON THE OTHER SIDE