Anticipation

[Editor's Note: How much vacation does this guy have, anyway? He's been lollygagging around the sandy beaches of the lake for a week now and shows no remorse about abandoning his patients to the care of his partners. Since it looks like this week is just a repeat of last week's exercise in intellectual apostasy, here is another post about his summer holiday.]

There are certain pauses that occur during a vacation up north when it seems that time suddenly holds its breath, then exhales with such a violent burst of chaos and laughter that those of us who worked so hard to earn a trip up here suddenly forget where we are. These moments catch us by surprise, such as when a fish hits a lure and almost knocks the rod out of our unsuspecting hands. Sometimes silence fills us with fear as we sink deeper into the cool water, balancing with care, breathing faster and faster until the bay echoes with the command "Hit it!" and our arms jerk us up onto two planks that send us flying across the lake in a parabola of rainbow-flecked spray like a bobsled leaning into a curve.

Later that afternoon, after the wind has pushed mountains of clouds across the lake, a distant gray wall approaches the shore. We wait for it - our faces turned toward the misty curtain, watching it roll across the black and white waves, waiting for the inevitable sign that the day's fun is over. When the first sting of rain hits us we scream with delight and scramble through the pine trees back to the cabin, where a lonely deck of cards lies with anticipation on an old wooden table. Another pause is welcome, for it invariably leads to another chapter in the story we are writing into the eternal forest of happy memories.