Light on the Water

Sorry for the delay, friends - I have been living in a cabin by a lake this week, where (perhaps fortunately), there was no internet access. However, it was good to get away from technology and live near the untamed wilderness. It's a wholesome, healthy thing to be in company with nature, away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.

Lake Cushman - home to birds, chipmunks, various freshwater fish, and - occasionally - higher mamals like myself. It is a beautiful place, where the pine forests come down to the water's edge, where the mists rest on the lake's surface every morning, and where the blackberries ripen with the summer sun. Sadly, they where not wholly ripe when we arrived, but the nectarines were - so we bought many from the fruit stand on the way. As lovely as all of this is, I want to talk about something different - the water itself.

The lake's depths give it a beautiful color by itself - a deep, beautiful blue-green. The water's motion gives it a shimmering texture, always changing as you watch. But most beautiful of all is when the lake is touched by the heavens.

The sun's reflection on the water makes it gleam gold and silver in the afternoons, almost as brightly as the sun itself - more replendant than any gold or silver mined from the earth. I sat upon the roots of a felled, driftwood-smooth tree at the waters edge and watched it, wanting to preserve it in my memory.

Early the next morning - 3 AM or so - I woke with congested sinuses. I happened to look out the window, and was taken by surprise. The full moon was hanging low over the tree-lined hills, and below that, on the water, it's light had cast a stripe of pure, shining silver across the dark lake. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

It is amazing to me how much beauty can occurr in Nature.There are many beautiful things that don't occurr naturally - like architecture and paintings and musical theatre and thanksgiving dinners - but there are infinitely more that do. Flowers, mountins, soft grass, sweet smells, painted skies... I had the the privilege of enjoying one of them this week - the gleam of the heavens, brought down to the earth, just beyond my reach.

'Til next time, my friends...