May 25, 2023

Good morning!

It’s Thursday. We went down the road yesterday to check up on the ghosts one last time before everyone starts returning for the summer. Caretakers across the peninsula have been working furiously to get the last of the cottages opened, pipes reconnected, broken water heaters replaced, screens repaired, and lawns mowed before the cars with out-of-state plates arrive laden with canoes and bicycles and children freshly freed from school.

At the end of the road, I found the duck staring longingly at this rope swing on the tree by his house. He asked if I might possibly lift him up and give him a push. “Once everyone gets here, I won’t be able to do this kind of thing,” he explained.

“Couldn’t you just use your wings to fly up to the swing?” I asked.

He shook his head and said it wouldn’t be the same.

So I lifted him gently, set him on the swing, and gave him a push. He laughed. So I gave him another push, and he laughed some more. Soon he was swinging (and laughing) without my help.

“Will you be ok getting off this thing,” I asked, “or should I stay and help?”

“Oh that’s ok,” he said. “I have wings, remember?”

“But real life is only one kind of life—there is also the life of the imagination.”

― E.B. White

Here’s to both kinds of life.

Onwards we go,

Clara