Maine

August 2009.

Moosehead Lake, Maine.

My daughter and I lay on a massive rock, the kind you expect to find up north. Big and flat as the hood of a car and perfectly sloped like a lounge chair. I could hear the boys skipping stones and talking a few rocks over, but we hadn't seen another soul for hours. The breeze coming off the lake was strong and chilly, so we were snuggled together letting the warm stone toast our backs. It smelled so fresh and evergreen, in that Maine kind of way, that you just knew you were getting healthier with every breath.

My arm tucked around her, we just lay there looking up at the mountain and trees against an insanely blue sky, listening to the water slapping the rock just a few feet below. Doing nothing. Nothing. Nowhere to be, no time commitments. No soccer practices or homework. No shoots scheduled. No sitters. Nothing.

It was… perfect.

She’s a wiggly sort so it didn’t last too long, but long enough to say to her, “Remember this moment, right here. Remember the rock, the sky, and the two of us laying here and how this feels, ok? Can you promise to remember?” As if in asking I could make her record the memory, and burn it in mine as well.

Now it is January and it feels so long ago. We’re healthy and happy but harried and busy, and the rocks here are... smaller.

I still ask her every now and then if she remembers our rock. Just to be sure.

And she always says she does.