Slip sliding away

Wiping the last vestiges of cacao from my lips as the car pulls into our home. Heaving the bags of laundry carrying memories of spaghetti stains, dubonie, corn chips, and too few cloths worn for a week out, indicates success. Thoughts of crusty colleagues, and endless work projects creep into my mind during prayer while away, pleading with Christ this summer for a break, what I have learned is his intent of teaching me to discipline my mind. Life's been so good for so long I've become lazy, real lazy, in spirit, mind and soul. Forgot how to memorize scripture, no wonder vagaries reside in my head, tossing it this way and that like my mother sizes up cabbage at the grocery store. Away from idleness life begins, first in your brain, then the body follow.
Vast valley of greenery disguises the anxiety breaking the surface of my heart, as my head pounds against the waves needing to relieve, what, years of conformity to someone I never was. They say it's too late to rejig in your 5th decade, it can't be too late to be honest. Out in the wilderness is where I feel sane, at peace, out of touch with society and in touch with me. Me, what a concept, I plead my students to reveal, create, imagine, what the best of themselves is, and I face them desperate to get out, but my good conscious, duty, obligation and patronage, and responsibility to my mortgage, inanimate objects keep me from "loafing" - defined beautifully in The Razor's Edge, by Maugham, a character named Larry, 20 years of age, born at the turn of the 1900 century, that yearns to 'loaf', read 10 hours a day to become learned in his realm, to breath British history, taste its literature, feel the curves of Renaissance, and conquer the Greek God's, instead of being indoctrinated by a courses that contorts, and asphyxiate the last vestiges of our creativity at University.
Lying on a beach towel absorbed by the Somerset Maugham, I recall the first time I read, truly read 14 novels in a row, Jeffery Archer,  dodging work, my parents, boyfriend and rowing commitments. My first addiction, words, 26 letters necking, pecking, massaging one another, bringing tears, screams, revolts, a satisfaction like no other.....and don't say sex...regrets have weights.
Quiet nights, listening to squires drop bombshells, pine cones, hunting and gathering for winter feasts as the National Camping Parks close, leaving an even further peace without the intrusion of late night profane neighbors that didn't get passed the "F" section of Webster's dictionary and under the influence of bad beer, as Hal would say, they played with fire, the earliest invention to keep man warm, entertained with a stick, and drawing one's name in the sand, over and over again.
Sun lathered our bodies with warmth, caressing the endless nerves soothing years of under sleep, overwork, adrenaline junky, and the need to please all, feed all emotionally, psychologically, etc.
Each dip in the lake took layers of undealt with bullying releasing it into the waters, feeling lighter by the day. While others frolicked watching clouds crest the mountains forming shapes of animals, fairy tales, and fantasies kept me occupied.
With my parents reading, sleeping, beating me at cards, and wondering about further vacations, it was lovely to be in their presence, listen to their lives, over and over again, I never tire of it. Delicate movements, motions, once tight and precise, take time to form, yet sharp minds catch us watching them, caring to much. Don't do this, be care about that, "Stop pestering me, I'm not dead."