Lake Affect

This morning, the placid lake beckoned me.  I slipped out of the house, a whisper of noise, a slight creak of the floorboard. I don’t think I disturbed Austen.  What is he dreaming, I wonder?

The grass is cool and the air is very calm.  The smell of the forest fills my nostrils. It’s earthy, clean, and heavy. Embers smolder in the fire pit from the night before.  Frog croaks are replaced by a variety of birdcalls.

The lake surface is a nearly perfect mirror, reflecting the tree line rim that surrounds the lake, and a sky streaked with pinkish white ribbons.  I walk out to the pier.

The canoe wobbles gently as I drop into the back.  I reverse away from the pier, dipping my paddle in the warm water, with only a gurgle erupting from its wake.  Like a shadow I attempt to move across the water, with only the drops of my paddle, dripping onto the surface, and small waves breaking away from the bow of my metal boat, rippling through the crystal picture.

For a while, I can see the surface below the water, about a paddle length below.   The water is just clear enough to discern details of a different world.  Vegetation, rocks, limbs, speckle the landscape, with a stray fish slicing through the water on a chaotic path.

Darkness is all that is left as I move into deeper waters.  Small cottages and piers protrude from the forest landscape surrounding the lake. Aside from the sounds of the birds, all else is silent.  No other human residents have ventured out to the water.

I pull my paddle out of the water as I coast near to the lake’s center. The sun has crested over the treetops, warming the water surface, and my face and neck.  Looking over the edge, I am coasting on darkness, with no change in color or texture, floating in an ethereal world. 

I rock the boat slightly, and feel the tension between metal and water, and marvel how the two interact in such a way as to keep one from just dropping to the very core of the darkness below.  So tenuous of a relationship--and yet I feel perfectly safe, no fear or concern.

For the moment at least, I am at peace. The slightest breeze from behind me ripples the water. It nudges the front of my vessel different directions and I watch the shadows cast into my boat move and stretch.

The only intruders into my serene world are dragonflies.  Thin wispy bodies dart across the surface of the water.  Bodies of brilliant light metallic blue, and long thin tails of brownish gold. The wings are nearly imperceptible, except when they land. 

Two venture close, joined together.  Flying in synchronicity, one attached behind the other.  They hover, then dart away, hover, and then land.  The dragonfly in front has four wings, of which only the outlines I can see.  The one in back has two.  The tails of the dragonflies are able to curl, even though in flight they appear to be one perfectly straight rod.  While they are on the surface of my canoe, the two joined dragonflies begin to curl closer together.  To the depth of who they are, does this engulf a physical connection and an emotional one?

And then they are off together again across the water.

I close my eyes.  I am going nowhere.  An occasional sound denotes that human activity is stirring slowly around the lake. For awhile yet at least, I know I am alone.

The sun is generating heat off of the water and my body.  It is an enveloping warmth that dares me to wander into a daze, losing myself in thought and feeling.  I open my eyes.  I have coasted to the far end of the lake.

Near to me is a decrepit building, resting at water’s edge.  Vegetation is growing out and through it. Boards hang off of the side.  The roof dips in spots.  No more than a single car sized structure, this building once housed ice for the residents of the lake.  In the winter, slabs of ice were gouged from the lake and dragged into the building.  In the summer, straw was placed over the ice to keep it from melting away.  Neighbors would come down to the large shed and get ice for their ice boxes. 

No longer needed in this day of technology, the old building has slipped away into decay, with only those few who remember passing along the tale of this once very prominent ice dwelling.

I turn my boat to head back, now nosing into a slight breeze.  The wind nudges me left and right, and my arms and shoulders tense as I drive the paddle blade more strongly through the water. I feel every muscle stretching and surging with energy. A small bead of water drops off my nose.

I steer toward the edge of the lake and find calmer waters.  Everything is moving past me faster now as I pull the paddle out of the water, and the boat slices through a perfect watercolor picture.  Each house along the lake is distinct and at various stages of age and wear.  Cruising past piers and stationary floats with minimal sound, I feel as though I am sneaking through someone’s back yard.

I can see below again and I stare at the lake bottom watching some activity around me.  I am sneaking through their back yard too.  I gently make my way back to the pier.  It is time to go home.