Seeing Close

We’re bobbing. In our boat. And we’re all here. Seven in a small space. Feels like heaven to me. This lake. The sky. Lonny and the boys brown with summer and breathing sweet life.

Zay’s on my lap. He’s counting seagulls perched on posts. Suddenly he bolts from my lap and roots through my big, pink  bag.

“What’s up , Zay?” I ask. “What are you looking for?”

He’s shifting through goggles and apples and things stuffed in the bag. He extracts what he’s looking for. His binoculars. Small and black in a canvas case. In a quick moment they’re looped around his neck.

“I want to see,” he says. “I want to see close.”

He settles on a seat and lifts the binoculars to his eyes. I’m not sure if he’s still looking at the birds, or if it’s the sky, or the stretch of horizon or the clean, clear stripes of blue. But he’s appreciating something, this looking close. He doesn’t move, small hands on the cylinder, tanned fingers curled tight. I watch as he watches, and a slow, sweet smile stretches bright and wide across his face.

He’s in no hurry.

He’s looking close.

Suddenly I want to watch well, too. I want to see close. I notice Samuel at the bow, legs dangling over. His back is to me. Little boy muscles twine his arms. His hair is a half-dozen shades of blond. Grant is beside him, laughing deep. It’s easy here, without the pull of teenage things. Gabe’s now bobbing in the water, hair a shock of white. His goggles are too tight and silvery strands of that hair poke up in wild tufts. He pushes air far into his lungs and he’s under the surface, under fluid shades. Lonny and Logan jump overboard and begin to toss a Frisbee in shallow depths. They toss and chase and shout and I see beyond the physical to how smooth it is with them, Logan stretching past boyhood into a sort of friendship with his dad.

I uncurl my legs in the sun and I just look. A smile comes, too, for me.

I wish this day could last forever.

But days aren’t made that way.

Snapshots can, though, stay long in my heart.

If I take the time to look close.


Lord, open my eyes to your beauty. Please allow me to see close...