Leaves & Sand

It’s November but we’re at a lake anyway. It’s warm enough for a picnic outdoors but cold enough to wear our coats. Leaving the warm spinach and cheese pastries, grapes, and sippy cup treat of chocolate milk behind, Matthew negotiates the rocky sand to get a closer look at the water.


“What is that?” he asks, pointing to rock.
“A rock,” I answer him.
“What is that?”
“A rock.”
“What is,” he pauses, searching for the right word, “on the rock?”
“It’s just the color gray,” I say with an air of impatience in my voice.
“Gway. This a gway rock,” Matthew tests the new word out on his tongue like ribbon candy.

The beach has an abandoned look about it, no buoys in the water to mark the swimming area or sailboats on the water. We spot a forgotten fishing lure, purple sand shovel, and child size water shoe tangled in the rocks and sand. We have the beach to pretty much to ourselves, except for a couple walking their dog in the distance.

Matthew drags a long stick behind him as we walk along the shoreline to another rocky patch. Bob and I settle down on a large rock and Matthew plops down close to the water and holds the stick in the water. “I’m fishing,” he explains to us.

 I’m thankful for a lot of things this Thanksgiving, especially for my imaginative boy and kind husband.