This is an excerpt of writing from the writing marathon that took place at Bennett Springs State Park on September 19.
2:37 p.m., along the stream between spring and river
Families come to Bennett Spring, the one next to us a mother, father, and an eight-year-old son. Norman Rockwell, were he painting in Missouri this day, could do no better. The gnats, though, might tax his concentration. I’m wondering, at the moment, what I should write. Something about gnats? Instead, I shift positions, but they follow.
What profundity can I dredge up? None, I confess. It is enough, this moment, to be, that tiresome old cliché. I care not if I fish, care not much if the mosquito circling my right ear takes a meal. I’m at peace, and the sense of surprise at this feeling says rather too much. I am not distressed by my mother’s failing mind, failing body, and recent death; my father’s frailty and neediness; the pestilence of moles in my lawn . . . not even by the “ain’t gonna’s” employed by the mother ten yards up-river from me in conversation with her son (rather marring the Rockwell effect). Today, the river flows past, and if I fail to deliver a kick-ass simile to impress my companions, it’s ok. And I didn’t even have that second beer at lunch.
I cannot fix everything, perhaps anything. I can, however, take pleasure in the company of people, teachers whom I grew to admire and respect during the summer. I can accept the gift of a perfect day.