Strings of Youth

“I was planted on this earth just after the seeds of tomatoes.” This is an actual first line from a poem I wrote in college. I don’t have the whole thing in front of me now, but it wasn’t as terrible as the first line might make you believe. Tonight, I’m thinking a lot about summer and family and of my college days. I have been reading a journal from 1997, my sophomore year, 4 Coss, for those of you that might remember. Some of you were there.

It’s a big camping weekend, and I’m ready to spend some quality time with the amazing people God gave me for an extended family. I’m ready to meet a new little cousin, toast two others as they graduate high school and join us adults in “real life,” and to celebrate Colby’s 2nd birthday. I’m ready for a drink around the campfire, a barbecued chicken off the spit and my morning coffee out of my signature giraffe mug in my dew-covered giraffe-print mud boots. (I promise, it’s a sight.)

I love these mild mornings that eventually end in balmy nights. I can’t wait to see my first lightning bug (or firefly, for you proper folk). I want to join the kids in throwing their glow sticks into the dark night just to see where they fall. This is summer; this is Lake Tweet; this is my life.

While I’m ready for all of this, I am subdued in that I am aching for friends who want it too. Some friends are lonely for family. Others are not happy in spite of their big houses and fat salaries. One special family is fighting childhood cancer this very second.

Yet, somehow, I am blessed. Although I am about to celebrate yet another birthday, I am reminded of the last line of my poem, which was really about coming of age: “The strings of youth held me softly and did not break.”

Have a blessed holiday weekend…