Wander | A High Mountain Lake
I didn’t think there was time. The afternoon was already closing in and passing by, the weekend waning fast. The tight-bunned task master in my head was pointing here, then there, underscoring with her rigid finger the reasons I should stay: get set for the week, prepare for Monday, be responsible. Yammering. Yammering. Yammering.
But then, there was the other voice. The one that flows from a deeper place, the one who sees through the yammering, who hears what the heart needs.
Open space. Quiet. Time undone.
There’s a natural saddle filled with water up in the high country, a small lake tucked way back, home of a single loon. We went. On that Sunday afternoon, my man and I loaded our gear and our dog, and went. We packed light: a small cooler, a charcoal grill, a couple chairs, a kayak. It took us eighty minutes to reach the lake over the bouldered, primitive road. A short hike, then, through the woods took us to the water’s edge. We were the only humans there.
I stepped into my kayak, leisurely paddling anywhere and nowhere. Sometimes, simply floating, watching the water stream to drips from my paddle, watching concentric circles grow. We sat on the shore, then, grilled our dinner, hushed our words. We watched the shadows lean across the water, watched the lake become a mirror of the smokey, pastel sky. The air was saturated, thick with earth and green. By inhales, we expanded, by exhales we let go.
As time slowed, we began to hear the language of the place. Squirrels, chattering a fuss. Birds, lacing together a song. Wind, stirring up applause. And Nellie, splosh, sploshing, through the tall grass growing along the lake’s shore, studying the shallows, her tail waving like a flaxen flag.
The single loon was silent.