cecret lake (Alta, Utah)

I have been drifting.  Looking for answers to questions that BC keeps telling me I don't need to be asking.... because I should already know.  

But when knowing is really faith poorly disguised,  it is impossible for me.  He keeps saying 'to hold on'.  I want to ask, 'hold on to what?' I think you are asking too much of me.  I have tried telling him where I am & what I think I need but when he is away, he is really gone. 

When we are together it all makes sense. Not perfect, there are huge human size holes and if I am not careful I tend to fall in them.  But it is the life and the love we built. It has keep me beside him for 13 years- something no one thought possible.

Together we drive.  I hate the way he drives my car and yet I love the way it feels to be his passenger. We twist through the canyon and Beach falls asleep in the backseat.  

We drive to the place where well over a decade ago I sat with another man watching the sunset. It was the first time in my adult life I had come up for air. I hold onto that moment for a thousand reasons.  I hold onto the place & the season.  Sometimes I even hold onto that man. With him, there was nothing to question, no acts of faith to preform, it was a simple as it was. He was the safest place I have ever rested and in that moment that was all I needed.

But BC is like a storm on the horizon in a year of drought.  He holds everything I need and everything that I want. All I can do is watch- and wait.

When we are together holding on to us is the easiest thing on the planet to do.  

I hike beside him sick because when he is here we are living on borrowed time and I don't want to let Beach down. She wanted to hike with her dad. My balance is off, my steps close to the ground.  We pass a half dozen grown men carrying pink and purple butterfly nets. They carry them for the daughters, in princess shoes, parading down the trail in their fathers' shadows.

When BC is gone that is the single thread I see still between us: his daughter.  

I know for him all the questions were settled a long time ago. Sitting on a rock bathed in pink light with golden grasses folding to the breeze we promised each other something. He doesn't drift like I do.  BC doesn't feel the wind.  He can tell time by the sun. Guess the temperature within 2 degrees. He can fix flat tires in the desert and he knows when I have pushed myself too far. 

He offers dinner and a drive out to GSL Sunset beach to watch the sun slip behind the silhouette of the Stansbury mountains. He buys a couple of beef and cheese tacos the toppings overflow the foil wrappings. But after taking a good look at me he revokes the sunset offer. He makes up an excuse about poor colors, not enough glow; realizing I am too tired to go but I won't say so.  

BC is staying home a little longer this visit because he sees it.  Because he knows.

When he leaves he can hold onto the knowing. 

I hold on to her.

 And she sleeps the whole car ride home.