skip a stone

I held a round, flat stone in my hand.

“Just throw it, like this – ” and he showed
me. Not down, not at an angle, but flat.

“Like a frisbee?” I asked, anxiously.

“Yes, like that.”

I took the stone and threw it, frisbee-like,
towards the river.

It fell into the water and hopped back out,
finally succumbing about a foot from where it
first landed.

I gasped.

“I did it! I did it!”

I hadn’t skipped a stone since childhood. I had
tried, but somehow in the thirty-five years or so
since I stood alongside the Delaware River and
threw rocks and now I had lost my touch.

I always thought my father was a stone-skipping
champion, somehow knowing exactly which rock would
be the optimum flying and hopping stone.

Last winter Samuel and I met an old man by
the Kern River who wowed me with his stone
skipping ability but I still didn’t get it.

Now, I have my “stone skipping touch” back.

I picked up another rock and threw it. It
sank without hopping.

Undetterred, I picked up another one. Threw it.
Watched it hop, joyfully, across and then into
the river.

“I did it again! I did it again!”

I have wanted to skip a stone, especially since
I discovered I no longer knew how. It wasn’t like
it was something hammering away at my
consciousness, but nonetheless, I wanted to
be able to say “Yes, I can do this!”

And now I know I most definitely can.