Alison: The ride home.

Ethan's kids headed back to southern New Hampshire this morning. They've been here almost a month. This afternoon I drove Zoe across the state to Barton, where she is staying with an old classmate for a couple of days. To get to Barton I drive through Hazen's Notch, a road closed in winter. Along the road, on and off, runs a stream. The water level is low right now. I scouted places to pull off to cool off on my way home but could not find any good places. So, on the way back I drove south, then west to Belvidere.

Home of about 300 people, the town has one store and one gas pump in front of the store. I stop in for a bottle of coke, a small can of Spam, and a snowball. My horrendous choice of food will catch up with me one day, I'm sure. I talk with the son running the store. Myrna has owned the store for as long as I've known about it. But this year she had some trouble with her leg, and her kids are helping out now. Thad goes to The Cajun Restauant with his family every Friday night. Ethan's parents and grandparents go too. Sometimes we tag along.

The only way I know Thad is that I've seen him at the Cajun, and last weekend I bought another coke in a bottle and a bag of nuts, and he was helping stock shelves for Myrna. I like the cokes in bottles because Myrna has a big old cooler in the back of the store, around the corner from the magazine rack, and it has an old bottle opener on the front, which I use every time.

So I talk with Thad about his dad and mother, and their health, and about the price of coke. Then I head down the wide steps to my car and on to my swimming spot.

Since no one is around, I figure I'll swim naked. That way, I can air dry a bit, put my clothes back on and not get the seat of the car soaked.

The water level is low. I can't believe it, but I think we need some rain. I step into the sandy part of the river. It's not too bad until my shoulders get wet. It takes my breath away. But it is wonderful.

The river runs brown. Must be the tannin in the leaves of the trees along the river. As usual, I look for rocks. This time I find one speckled with orange and ochre, with bits of green along the edge. I think it's lichen but my fingernail can't scrape it off. I keep it. Another one I keep is a perfect oval. A third is a greenish oblong rock. I always hold them up to my chest to imagine them as necklaces. One small one looks like there is mica and maybe quartz in it. I'll scrub it at home.

I head upstream against the current. Small waterfalls bubble over the larger rocks creating a jacuzzi. I lay in the bubbles, letting the turbulence pull at my hair. Along the edge of the river are some larger rocks. One looks like a mixture of many types of rocks, so I keep that one. Then I find a triangular one, about the size of half a sandwich. Its middle is white and eaten away. Maybe it will be a stand for one of my dolls someday. For now, it is a smooth paperweight. The air smells like autumn even though it's barely the middle of July. Must be the pine trees along the banks of the river. Halfway up the hill one tree has been stripped of its bark, its stark length of tree a series of holes from woodpeckers.

Downstream the water gets shallow and barely covers the large rocks. I float downstream until I hit the rocks. Along the edge the high waters of early spring dug at the banks exposing more rocks among the moss and tree roots. A few sticks are jammed into the roots. I take one that was eaten on both ends by beavers. I realize this stick must have floated down from the bogs over a mile upstream. The bogs were created by beavers.

It's time to go. I grab my clothes, rocks, stick and sandals and head up the steep path to my car. The deerflies bite my back as I struggle into my clothes, as I'm still wet from the swim.

I love being in Belvidere. I love Tallman's store. I love wading in the stream, looking for rocks, smelling the cooler air, the tannic water, the pines and rotting leaves. I remember a week one summer that I spent in Piggot, Arkansas, shooting cans in the river with a .22, going to the store for a pop, Uncle Rube giving me a musket ball from the Civil War, and stopping by someone's house for a visit, watching the peacocks strut in the front yard. That is what life is about. That is what Belvidere is to me.

On the way home, two crows flutter to the side of the road. I look for abandoned houses and wonder what it would take to make them livable again. I see a mound of daylilies, orange against the green of a field, and a different green of the wall of trees behind them. The Trout River parallels this road. I search for sticks along the river when I should have my eyes on the road. An old abandoned house sits in a bend in the road, one side now covered with ivy. Two bachelors used to live there. It is said they kept all their money under a mattress in the house and one night were robbed. Years later a girl's car was seen there, against the house, her purse and paycheck in the front seat. The girl was never found.

I think about getting old. I realize now time is finite. It is such a wonderful thing to be able to smell the scent of pines, to feel the cold hit my back when I lay in the river. Sometimes I feel like I live in a magician's box and the knives pressed into the box are getting closer and closer to cutting my skin.

If time is running out, what do I do? If creating art, and thinking about art takes more time than it used to, do I still pursue it? And how much do I compromise of myself?

The road to Barton runs through long flat fields that have been cut or are waiting for the second cutting of the year. Cows chew. A few silos break the horizontal fields. I take deep breaths. I can breathe.