Open Waters

The lake feels vital, now, even more than before Covid. I’ve paddled Keuka’s waters, swum in them, and on its shores I’ve picnicked, sipped wine, gotten married. For 15 years we’ve lived a short drive away, and to go somewhere in April and May we’d pick up ice cream at a drive thru and take it to a park just below the north tip so we’d remember it was there. As I type I hear Keuka through the window of this rented house, waves rushing in and wind blowing its moisture undetectably onto my skin. It’s beneath the skin, too: a lake is personal, just as a lake is infinite. Yesterday I crested waves around the bluff just after dawn, but this morning it was placid, and I laid the paddle across the kayak to join the stillness. Drifting in the wideness, the world felt large again.