I think even then, I didn’t feel like I was waiting for it, it felt like I was in it.

I didn’t use the front door of our house on Van Dyke Road. But I did use the stoop — the set of cement stairs that faced the gravel. I would perch there. Knowing a car might pass going to town. Or a truck to the North End. A Dynda hanging laundry. A Schulz boy up to no good. A Norton girl on bicycle, on foot. A Weiss getting the mail. A Mullen racing from the sound of their mother’s call. 

Even motionless, I could feel the river’s ripple. Weren’t we all a part of this movement toward the ocean? Khalil Gabran tells us “It’s not about disappearing into the ocean but of becoming the ocean.” I didn’t have the words for it then, and yet the water lapped against my bare feet. Perhaps change is the hardest now when I forget the water and find myself waiting. Waiting for the change that will bring all the relief, the “I’ll be happy when…” It’s not until my formerly chubby toes wiggle and say, you’re already in it… that’s all, you’re in it. I smile, and let myself become.