I have to write. I felt it for a few minutes last week. Long enough to create a blog. Then again in the car with the kids in the backseat and Brandon lost to earphones and the steering wheel. Now, it's a pressure in my chest, not unlike Dad might have felt in those days he thought he was having esophagus spasms.

Spasms they were not.

Now, when I'm unloading the weekend's leftovers, and repacking the pantry, it's a vintage ice cream making bucket that hurts. It makes me ache with remembering, even while I can't fully remember making ice cream with my dad, or my mom, or ever. It's more of a longing of what might have been in those days when I was a child and Dad was alive. We might have made ice cream.

This weekend, my regret is that I never allowed him the aging pleasure of camping with me and my kids. He asked. I postponed. And I get a sinking feeling now when I move toward something beautiful.

It's summer again. And I want to show him sunny places near my mountain. And I want to float in the river like I'm told he did. In that life he lived in his year of discovery. The year he road a motorcycle east, the motorcycle we sold on Craigslist. Sometimes, I hate myself a little.