I love clouds. The other day I posted on Facebook about how clouds remind me of my grandmother.

Today we took to the lake, a last sprint into the waning light of summer. We didn’t plan, packed light, and simply went where the day took us.

From the start it was beautiful. Big, billowy clouds that even through the screen of my sunglasses, pierced straight to my heart. Memories, hope, and the gentle release of knowing how little my worries and I are.

The sky, with its patchwork pattern of clouds and flirty, hard-to-get sun, tagged along.

We motored North, passing our usual haunts of the Narrows and the Mother Bunch, past Sabbath Day Point and Huletts Landing. We didn’t slow until we hit Hague. There the girls took turns driving the boat while I stretched out, my feet hanging over the edge of the boat, and stared up at those clouds.

It was as if they took the emotional cargo I usually schlep with me. The only time my mind really worked was as I watched the girls swim, at times alongside them, other times from the dock. Like reflections of the clouds, lifting everything but my gratitude to be living in the glow of these three splashing girls. Lapping up the turns of phrase they create, the day-to-day sounds they turn into danceable music, and the lesson to always take the time to look beneath a rock and test the height you can get while leaping from one boulder to the next.

I hope your Labor Day proves as unlabored and reenergizing as my Sunday with the clouds.