We're renting
Just next door to where my children once learned to dive,
were swaddled in warm towels by their grandmother,
ate salt and vinegar chips, lips chattering, turning blue.

Now three boys leap off the raft,
their parents watch from chairs on the lawn.
We spy on them through the fence slats,
glimpses of people we don't know now living a life
that was once always.
They've cut down the tree where our children carved initials
that last summer we were here,
that last night when we built a fire
and sang
and canoed under the stars.

Their boys flip backard off the raft
holding each other under water
when my father-in-law would have shouted careful,
careful,
and never moved.

The loons still cry in the morning,
my mother-in-law could still be inside,
talking on the phone with the long curly cord while she
covered salads with damp paper towels to keep them crisp.
The house where we met.

Shopping with a gold medal winner

I needed glass cleaner and vegetable stock so I went to Trader Joe's where they don't have glass cleaner but do have free mini cups of coffee and flowers that don't grow in my yard.  I picked out the orange ranunculus and five bananas, wheeled over to the kale and mint in bags, and there next to me was a woman I know to be a gold medal winner. Gold Medal like in The Olympics gold medal.  There in her running leggings and shoes as if she'd just come off the podium, even though that happened over 30 years ago.  We were reaching for fruit together, she for blueberries, I for out-of-season, overpriced pomegranate seeds that I would never buy ever in May but decided this recipe looked good and I'd already picked out the mint to go with it (and would later leave without the lamb because it was too expensive and so now I have overpriced pomegranate seeds and mint in my fridge). I thought, oh, here I am, next to a gold medal winner, and we are both picking up fruit together. So healthy, she and I! We have so much in common. 

We were together again in the cheese section. I thought to get a photo of her so I could show someone on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat a photo of her, of us, shopping together at Trader Joe's with our similar lifestyles.  I thought maybe she sees me, so healthy, in new pants that I bought that are too big and maybe she is noticing how in shape I am but really it's just that I bought the pants in a size too large and they don't fit right. (And who am I kidding? I'm not in shape like I'm training for any event at all!) I didn't get a photo, because I was trying to be sneaky so I snapped my shopping cart, the floor, the mozzarella hunk I'd grabbed even though it wasn't on my list and she left the cheese without getting anything and I left with a 5,000 calorie hunk of cheese that was neither vegetable broth nor glass cleaner.

One last meeting in the frozen foods, by the berries. I took a bag of frozen raspberries, she took frozen strawberries. I considered putting my bag back and getting one like hers, as if that would bring me closer to winning any sort of medal, but I don't like frozen strawberries.

Then she drifted off. I'd like to think she was in the potato chip aisle, buying bags of those pretend healthy chips like kale or seaweed or fresh hay.  But she was gone, and I looked over the chocolates, the little cups of peanut butter, the salted mounds of sesame caramel goo, the Scandinavian Swimmers in a bag, and  I yanked up my pants by the belt loops and paid, thinking maybe I'll see her later today on my walk, that she's too old now to run at Medal speed, and she'll recognize me from the store and we'll share tips for how to train for local 5Ks or how to make fruit salad out of season.