Changing Places

I watched their play. The fourth generation summering on these shores. Rocks gathered on the beach to make driveways for Tonka trucks.

How could they know my brother and I did the same over 30 years ago? Toys and sand evoke fond memories. I smile.

Scampering over boulders, bare toes gripping stone, springing from one to another. Waves lapping, beckon them and off they run. Water splashes, glistening in the sun. Waves and wind drowning childhood laughter. I delight in their joy.

Games continue. Dolphins, mermaids, gymnasts, clowns, the children change places. Imaginations know no bounds.

Places seem ageless. We look at pictures later in the afternoon. The cottage, erected in 1937, vaguely looks familiar. Black and white photos of these shores, structure, and sand. I see my Great Grandma - one I've never met. I'm told the long-skirted ladies beside her are sisters. She had six, no one now knows who's who. I peer in their faces, part of my blood lineage and wonder about their lives.

My children marvel at the "olden days". We all study the clothes and cars of the time period.

My mom was once where I am now and she stood as her mom did before her. Perhaps my children will be where I am now. I do not know. We ponder, live, love, laugh, dream.

We're all just changing places.

"A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever." Ecclesiastes 1:4

Comments

Belinda said…
Wow, Joyful; 71 years of history in that cottage. How awesome that is, and how amazing the memories and voices that float in the air!

Thanks for the snapshot of your summer hideaway.
4:30 PM
Angcat said…
That was beautiful Joyful!
In your writing there were no spare words, just descriptive, colorful, sensory illustrations of the children and their day.
I loved it.
Hope you have an awesome time there.
God bless!
9:50 PM
Dave Hingsburger said…
A lovely post, your words dance like sunlight on the surface of a river that runs so deep.
6:19 AM
Ann Voskamp @Holy Experience said…
Touching truth... us, all just changing places.

I pray that the place I'm making is a place worthy of someone else coming to fill... only by His grace.

He gives you beautiful words...

Every blessing, friend,
All's grace,
Ann
8:27 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Voyage

Image
Note from Belinda: I read this prayer yesterday and again today--and then I read it to Susan after cell group, when we were having our "second cup" of decaff coffee together. I knew that she'd love it. She has a framed picture on her office wall of a little blond haired girl in a sail boat on a stormy sea. A fatherly sailor,with a weather beaten face; in a gray sou'wester, holds her close, as he capably mans the tiller. This prayer reminds me of that picture and influenced what I wrote earlier today, when I used the metaphor of ebbing waves to describe a lack of consistency and my desire to crash over the sandbar into the peaceful pool on the other side.  ( Susan sent me a link to the painting, which was done by American impressionist Robert Reid in 1888.  It hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in NYC.) Be bless ed by the beauty of this prayer. OH LORD OF THE OCEANS, My little bark sails on a restless sea, Grant that Jesus may sit at the ...
Read more

Samson Beaver and his Family

Image
I first posted this in 2009, a little show and tell about one of my favourite photographs. Back then it hung on a wall, but now it's in my bathroom where I see it every morning! I'd forgotten the history behind the story, researched when I first posted this and thought that current readers might enjoy it--a story from a time when this land was still being discovered, not so very long ago. This photograph was taken by Mary Schaffer; artist, photographer, writer and naturalist, in 1907. It is of a Stoney Indian named Samson Beaver, with his wife Leah and daughter, Frances Louise. I bought the photo on a postcard, on a trip to British Columbia and it hangs framed, on the wall I face when sitting at my laptop. I love it. Don't you just feel as if you could gather Frances Louise up in your arms and cuddle her? I get a deep sense of peace and happiness when I look at this family, sitting in the grass of a long ago fall. They are dressed in their best, beautiful c...
Read more

Ere Zij God--Glory to God in the Highest! A Dutch Carol

Image
By Belinda This beautiful Dutch carol was shared today by a friend of Dutch ancestry, on Facebook. I had never heard it before but absolutely loved it. It moved me deeply, especially at the end after the crowd leaves the church and then breaks into spontaneous singing again around a brazier, with the sound of chiming church bells in the background. Listen to it with headphones or a good speaker to get the full effect of the harmonies. And happy first Sunday in Advent!
Read more