Archive for July, 2009

The Gathering

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

The night before: The last of the heat lightning flickers in the nacreous clouds above; the lightning bugs echo in the gathering mist covering the cut hay below. Around me are the middle-size flickers of the cold LED flashlights everyone is using now: the campers have started to set up their tents as the KMI clan gathers for our summer event.

Noemi shows up with bagels from Montreal, Christoph with bottles of wine from Germany, Pilar from Mallorca via Santa Cruz. The next few days of Christoph’s perineurial class, with 26 students from all over will be followed by at least twice that for the weekend celebration. The gathering.

The next day: Took the kids out for an evening sail. Larissa jumped in and held on to a docking line, being towed behind the boat – very brave and gung ho! Ella stayed on the bow texting with her friend Amber, who is as full and open and kid-like as Ella is angular and mysterious – what a quick and strange transition from kid to teen! Ron Floyd is in, literally ‘learning the ropes’ on the boat as we maneuvered around the cove and river.