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In August it will be two years that we’ve lived in East Central Illinois.

We left behind the water and the trees and everything familiar to begin our beginning in the middle - four years into our marriage, with one child in tow, my husband went back to graduate school as a full-time doctoral candidate and I launched a tentative freelancing career.

While I mourn our old life in many ways, I am certain that the exciting opportunities in front of us now would not have come had we stayed in our 109-year-old Dutch Colonial in Western New York.

Many a day passes when I don’t think of the shining waters of Lake Ontario. Instead my mind is focused on the task at hand: raising our daughter, working on my travel column, trying to stem the flotsam and jetsam of a family of three.

Then there are the days when my heart aches to see water, and spend time with my mother and sister.

Typically that itch is scratched each summer when I visit my family home on Cape Cod, near the Atlantic Ocean. I am lucky enough to sleep in a bleached white room whose only color comes from the green and blue view of the window overlooking Herring Run.

Our visits there are long and leisurely, with late mornings at the beach and sticky ice-cream cone faces after dinner.

This year, I am expecting my second child, a boy baby.

His arrival is much anticipated and welcomed, but the timing?

Not so much.

My son is scheduled to enter the world via the surgeon’s knife on Aug. 8. This means I’m grounded after July 1.

A long, hot summer on the prairie looms ahead of me.

I feel trapped, tied down, stuck. Even as my feet swell and it becomes harder to move, I crave the taste of salt on my tongue.

This year, the only salt will come from my tears, both of frustration and of joy.

My baby has me wrapped up in chains this summer. But still I dream of the cool waters, and anticipate next year, when both my children will bob with me in the waves.

by A.L. Hatch

Photo graciously provided by taberandrew, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved