day three | moment

prompt: moment
Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).
(Author: Ali Edwards)

I feel most alive in my most quiet moments.

Often I find quiet when surrounded by the noise and enthusiasm of my family.

Each summer, for too few blissful days, we spend our family holiday in Cape Cod. We pack up the truck and though the drive is a bit long, a bit tense, a bit loud, a bit quiet, a bit silly, it is our most favourite collective tradition.

We spend 10+ hours in anticipation of our arrival:

 

Through the turquoise door is my sanctuary. 

Once we're there a few days, everyone settles in. That marks the moment that hilights my year. The one when I close my eyes and breathe deeply, I feel content. I feel alive.

The windows are open and a salty ocean breeze filters through the house. Helped along with the slowly turning ceiling fan. The air is moist and rich, but not heavy in humidity. In the distance there is a buoy ringing in the ocean waves. 

I can hear Louis and Claire in the living room, talking in hushed tones. They are putting together, yet another, annual puzzle project. 1,000 pieces, of course. It is special time for them and keeps them occupied for the duration of our time away. Our time suspended. Each piece is put in place with a gentle tap-tap-tap. Then onto the next piece.

Cole, with his increasingly deep and loud voice of approaching adolescence, is chasing his little brother around in the softly rolling sand dunes. His deep shouts are followed by the occasional high pitched giggle of joy Caden releases with exuberance. They yell, they giggle, they wrestle, they chase and they enjoy their time running between the house and the beach, on the path, which makes Grampy happy, and off the path, which makes them happy while they risk meeting poison ivy and critters.

Chloé sits across from me in the family room with the iPad in her lap. She has clearly found something that keeps her interest and her eyes sparkle as she wins and moves onto the next level of the game she is playing. Chloé has a particular fondness for games of chance and opportunity, and she glows at the idea of beating the computer.

Me? I'm folding laundry on the coffee table. Much of it is fresh and warm from the dryer. Here at the beach we go through a ton of towels. The blue, red, white, black, and yellow multi-striped towels we only use here at the beach. They must be close to twenty years old, but they are soft and filled with memories. Towels in one pile and then more piles for each room and each child. Laundry folding is such a familiar routine, no thought so I am able to give way to my surroundings, my imagination.