Refreshment

Just around the corner from the scale house in the Navy Yard, near the foot of one of the many piers that stretch like fingers into the harbor sits an innocuous summer savior: a fountain. Residents, like bugs to a porch light, cluster around these gems dotting the city to savor water's magical salve on a scorching summer day. Young mothers, their momentarily abandoned shoes and strollers just out of reach, bend to grasp the hands of unsteady babies be-decked in the bold prints of swimsuits, some of the fuzzy heads sporting matching head bands or sun hats. They walk in small circles, avoiding the squealing toddlers as they run happily through the cool spouts of water, splashing everyone with delight. Parents expecting only to watch the water dance, find themselves rolling up pant legs or gathering skirts into their hands so that they, too can wade.

Older children may or may not wear swimsuits and take no time to ponder what it will feel like to walk home in wet jeans or dripping cotton t-shirts. They sit in the deepest water they can find or stretch their legs out behind them, walking on their hands like bottom feeders. Some of the fountains don't have much standing water and the kids take their place under the spouts as if they were at a mass public shower where sitting was mandatory.

Although I have seen the arcs of water and the gatherings on Cross Street and Commercial Avenue, my kids like to run down to the fountain close to home at the end of a hot day of outings. Still wet and chilled, they hope to enjoy the relative coolness of the house (the large, open spaces of this early nineteenth century home are hard to air-condition on these really hot days) deep into the evening.

While Rem swam as if in a luxury swimming pool Miren and Lise talked about our favorite swimming holes in the mountains of North Carolina. They have not done much reminiscing or pining for the only home they knew for so long. Boston bewitches them with the continued unfolding of treasures (whether a store called H&M or a fifty-two storied sky walk) and its infinite depth. And both girls are still basking in the adolescent joys of a room of one's own.

We remembered the afternoons blueberry picking in Graveyard Fields. Typically unaccustomed in the mountains to the open sky above we watched in awe as clouds and showers blew past. The afternoons always ended in the wonderfully frigid waters of the deep pool down the trail from the berry bushes. I described the easy hike along Big Creek in the Smokies to the trout pool, made cooler by the surrounding trees and rising slopes, nestled as it was in the bottoms of the mountains. Miren and Lise recalled the surprising warmth of Lake James as we swam around our canoe in coves near the edge of the lake, large motor boats and jet skis darting about in the distance. "Cataloochee Creek" and "Jacob's Fork"s rolled off our tongues without pause, releasing a rush of Appalachian waters from our lips .

No tears. No longing. Just happy thoughts of summers past.