I Hope I Never...

There was a great big cloud that filled up the Sound and stopped right at the water's edge where we stood in the sunshine.

I hope I never get used to things like that.
I hope it always surprises me how the stones on the beach are worn so smooth and how the tides lay them out like expensive landscaping, only better.
I hope I never grow tired of watching my wee girl drawn to the water as if by magnetic force.
I hope it never stops amazing me how even with a fever, she will be silenced, energized, mesmerized by the surf while she communes, picking around in the seaweed, burying her toes and watching, watching, watching while the tide rolls in.
I hope I never forget that if there are objects near a body of water, my small, burly boy will throw them in, brush his hands with satisfaction and turn to throw some more.
I hope it never ceases to amuse me how he must find the largest rock and try to lift it, how he calculates strange distances behind his eyes and asks me if we can do impossible things.
I hope my breath never stops catching over the mountains and valleys and lakes and rivers and the trees, so invincible and fragile and huge.
I hope I never lose the butterflies that swim in my tummy when we lie down to sleep under the stars and laugh into the night as the fire dies and tell each other the same jokes that no one else would understand.
I hope I am never immune to the dirt between my toes and the smoke in my hair and the magic of fresh, hot coffee in the middle of the forest.
I hope these eyes of mine never stop seeing the endless beauty, the possibility, the minutiae, the bare and open hearts, the magic, the good, the life in all that surrounds me.

The cloud stopped there on the edge of the Sound and we stood in the sunshine and we watched as the waves rolled in, unexpected and broke at our feet. Through a sightless fog, these waves just kept rolling in.