Fear in Writing: Last day on the Outer Banks

Today in Literary History

Today in Literary History...December 14, 1907: Rudyard Kipling receives the Nobel prize for literature, the first English-language writer to do so.ud

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Last day on the Outer Banks

The sky is a blue canvas, stretched in a clouded frame. The sun has dried the leftover rain into beaded strands along the porch rails. It is our last day at the edge of the ocean, and it is the most beautiful day yet.
Last night we celebrated Jake's fourth birthday. He was up till 10 and awoke at 7 to play with his gifts, namely a 40-piece Rescue Heroes set. All he wanted this year was 'action figures, Mom!' Turning four means turning a big corner in maturity. I love it, but I don't want him to grow up.
There is something significant about waking up to play on your own. There's an independence that I've never seen before in him today. For an hour before waking, I could hear Jake speaking the voices of his action figures. Soft cries of 'Got you now!' and 'You can't get past this!' cut through my dreams. I woke with a smile on my lips.
It's better than Thursday morning, when I awoke from a dream of shark bites and refused healthcare amid a city in war-like chaos.
But today we must pack in the last of our relaxation. We must steel ourselves for reality, the commonality of home, the monotony of daily routine, the burden of responsibility. I'm getting stressed just thinking about compressing enough relaxing time into the remaining 12 hours...

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