Just a Memory

Gazing up at the deep blue sky just now, I realized that this is the time that my family would have been headed to our cabin in the high cascades, on the slopes of Mt. Jefferson, the summertime version of Christmas. We had waited so long, through the winter snows and the spring rain, and now, finally, the day had come, mid July, the stationwagon packed to the roof and rear door, which itself had been forced shut by my father's shoulder, and we boys, my brother and I, wedged into the back seat between pungent sleeping bags and fishing gear and pots and pans and the Coleman stove and lantern and dufflebags and boxes of food and the big green cooler. The engine was running, only 103 miles now between us and the cabin and the shores of Olallie Lake, and home. So many times, and in so many ways, I have tried to repeat this journey, to reach, again, this destination. It cannot be done. It is tucked, untouchable, in the arms of eternity.