We spend the weekend at the lake, the last of the summer. Maybe the last of the year. Everything is blue—blue on blue on blue, whitecaps cresting again and again. Someone once told me that turbulent emotions pass in ninety seconds or less if you give them room to roll through. I hold my breath, let the waves tumble me, then I’m back, head above water again.
How long can I hold my breath?
The water covers land as far as I can see. Somewhere out there is the other side. Somewhere out there someone crosses the lake, finds something new, somewhere solid to stand. We watch a dozen boats, all overflowing with fishing rods, skip out past our sightline while we sit on shore. I dip my toes in the water, then go for a swim with the kids. If it were up to me, I’d float away.
I try to capture what this feels like in a photograph and fail. How many times I’ve sat in this exact place and had this exact thought. I’m refreshed by the water’s revelation, tempered by its memory. The rock, the sky, the sea. We have more years than we can count. We reminisce and it’s nice to remember.
But I romanticize. I paint with a broad brush. It’s easy to blend away the argument, the poor nights’ sleep, the listlessness, until it’s all blurry around the edges. Shouldn’t a trip to the lake be filled with gratitude and daydreams?
I’m falling short but fill in the gaps. We are, in fact, doing okay, feeling our way through dark hallways looking for doors. There’s no lake there, so we glimpse what we can, hold it like a photograph in our minds. A treasure, a token, a souvenir. It’s too early to let go. I’m not drifting away yet.
Leave a Reply