The lake

A meander on a well-trodden path

This lake. The lake. My lake. I go to her, often with my solitary self, but she always makes room for this and so much more. Her temperamental mood and shy whispers have a way of stripping off the straitjacket of my loneliness. It’s a concerted effort sometimes, but we both prefer the tango to the waltz, the dancing to the music. We like the struggle and the kind of fire that warms our souls. Our bodies will take care of the rest. Blades of grass and pebbles of rain are our only witnesses. The trees are too proud to watch, and the stars have done it all before. Poor souls: they don’t know what they’re missing out on. Forgive us as we join blood to water. Dead leaves are falling all around us. It’s the most romantic thing in the world.

There’s the smell of a storm in the air, a sense of communion in the electricity that flows between a man and his sky. It’s easy to believe that I am connected to something bigger than the infinity stretching before me. Thin rays of light are piercing the thick gray blanket in places it probably shouldn’t, as if God had something else to say about life. I’m one word, one look, one slight mishap away from falling back into the void. But today I make room for that too. I throw my hands toward the beams and breathe in the smell of dead leaves and feel what it feels like to be a vessel of lightning, a container and a universe that contains other universes. If God has something to say I’m already on my knees.

Look at all the happy people. Runners running from death instead of themselves. Boatsmen anchoring into the depths of their yearning. The elderly, coupled and strutting without an ounce of regret in their step. The homeless finding salvation in the shared end of a burning stick. Children laughing and galloping along the promenade, caught in colorful reveries unknown to everyone else, all at once one with their surroundings. Parents and caretakers grateful for this amorphous thief of attention. College students smiling and bright and young and beautiful, their minds and bodies not yet touched by the tribulations of taxes and to-do lists. A man gazing across the lake, contemplating something more than the shape of his loneliness. On the field a woman who knows there are stars exhaling their final breath behind cold clouds.

Hang onto the moment and watch it fade like snow in eager hands. Let it go and let it come back in due time – or so my therapist tells me it will. But I want to tell someone I caught a snowflake today. I want to say I used my tongue for more than gossip and conviction, that I devoured more than my fair share of the day. Already the trees are losing their pride, standing there and swaying like faceless towers in the distance, reminding me that the invisible hand of consistency bends even the greatest of us. The blades of grass and pebbles of rain take on their usual role. I want to join the runners now, but the stage is set. The dead leaves have fallen and died. I take my place and recite my lines.

A self remains when I return back home. He’s waiting for me at the dining table with a hungry look on his face. His friends are there too, ravenous. Where have you been? I welcome them, my family. They want to hear about the tragedies of my day. I tell them the apartment is emptier than it once was, sure. A guitar stand, a bookshelf, a yoga mat. Traces and outlines, stains and eraser shavings occupy me more than they should. Still, I tell them I can work with that. Maybe it’s enough. I steady myself at my desk and sketch a word portrait of the lake. I show them how to turn lightning into thunder.