Mountain Air

All sanity depends on this:  that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.  -- Doris Lessing

We're leaving.  For the next two weeks we'll be in our precious, lush, mountainous retreat for our annual summer vacation.  The reviving of our souls. Tightening the knots that knit our family together.  Spiritual maintenance. Quality time.  We love it there because it's simple, slow, organic, wholesome, lovely, serene, transcendent.  After a day like today, oh my soul thirsts for it!

There is very limited internet access in the high altitude, along with patchy cell phone reception.  This is a good thing.  It forces one to disconnect. I'm debating bringing my laptop. I may, but I can't promise I'll want to blog, let alone be able to logistically pull it off. I'll set up a few "auto-posts" in my absence lest you miss me too much. 

After banging out a book excerpt from scratch like a woman possessed over the past 5 nights, I have my heart set on reading instead of writing.

Here's what's on the docket:

The Art Of Racing In the Rain -Garth Stein
Traveling With Pomegranates: A Mother Daughter Story -- Sue Monk Kidd with Ann Kidd Taylor
Mennonite In A Little Black Dress:  A Memoir Of Going Home - Rhoda Jansen
Lit, A memoir --  Mary Karr
Committed -- Elizabeth Gilbert
Push: A Novel by Sapphire
Becoming Jane Eyre --Sheila Kohler

So far this summer I have read:

The Lovely Bones
The Reader
The Piano Teacher
The Gargoyle
Between, Georgia

Along with compulsively reading, I can't wait to run with the fireflies, gorge on ice cream, and play with the girls without interruption or self-imposed obligation.  I can't wait to drink sangria on the porch every evening, bellies filled with barbecue, and watch the tails of shooting stars streak across a planetarium-like sky. A night sky that looks like exploding fireworks suspended in the heavens.  I can't wait to watch the sunrise burst over the mountain tops directly out of our window each morning, bury Tink in the sand at the lake and languish our days away in the shade of a tree watching the girls frolic in the water.  I can't wait to see Dr.Fabulous every waking moment for 14 days straight and make s'mores by the campfire. I can't wait to do the nothing that makes it all so special. I just, simply, can't wait to feel the sweet peace and tingling lightness of being alive.

And I can't wait to share it all with you when I return. Ciao!