“What are your thoughts?” asked the husband to the wife.
“Hmmmmmm,” murmured the wife, stalling for time.
What is it about thoughts that make us want to hold on to them? As if the neural impulse that fires before the “I can’t believe he’s telling the same story again,” is any more reliable than the one that sends, “God, I love his smile.” As if in an eye blink, there won’t be another thought that contradicts the last one. My mind ping pongs from scandalous accusation to conclusive summary to opening argument to aspersion to doubt to finality to modest self-blame.
Like a stone on the water’s surface, my thoughts barely touch down. Judgment after criticism, displeasure after righteousness, six, eight, twelve times. My husband’s record is 17 – stone skips; with me, though, the tally is higher, innumerable scrapes across the surface before plummeting below, pulled to the depths of the sea’s floor.
I haven’t mastered the wrist movement necessary to skip stones. I stand at the water’s edge, convinced that this time the stone will alight at the water’s surface, this time I will figure out what is needed to cast the stone out toward the horizon. I search for good stones, flattened and smoothed over eons of time sent out and returned to the shore. Every time my throw is off. The stones land heavily, artlessly, announcing their failure with a loud, watery kerplunk, making it no more than a mere countable feet from the sandy edge where I remain.
What are my thoughts? Hmmmmm.
The very first time we were all together at the water’s edge, my husband began to teach my son how to skim stones. He reached without looking, scooped up a handful of stones, then stood at the edge and casually launched them, one after another. Six, eight, twelve skips. Some fell after just one or two, but most stayed aloft long enough so we could count along in sing-song. The arc of his arm, the simultaneous effort and ease, the shine of the water interrupted by little circles of disturbance at the surface, the sureness of passing along a crucial life skill, the way a grown man stood beside a small boy whose young hand emptied prematurely before he could raise his tiny arm fully to his side, both looking out toward the horizon, both knowing that everything depended on the throw.