No More to the Lake

   The photograph was taken in the moments after sunset. The orange ball no longer shows above the horizon, but its reflection is still visible in air and water.  In the sky, the orange mingles with the iridescent blue of twilight, the two colors distinct but inseparable.  On the lake, the light is a neon outline on each of the waves, showing how small and even and perfect they are, the shape of an unaccented syllable in poetry, or of a child’s drawing of birds in flight.

   I once showed that photo to a student who’d come from Serbia.  He was something of a madman, either by nature or from the stress of his country disintegrating.  He seized the photo from me and said, “This is the place I have seen in dreams.”

   The cottage on Lake Sallie was my dream, my home, my pivot point for 15 years. And then I sold it.

   Sunsets like the one in the photo were rare, but there were myriad variations, each with a special beauty.  On overcast nights the clouds would catch and hold a vivid pink.  When the lake was very still, the setting sun would light a path straight from the horizon to their cottage’s front door, and I could understand all those folk tales about lands beyond the sunset.

   I remember once, walking my dogs to the end of the beach road, turning and looking back and realizing how well I knew this place, the curve of the road and the pattern of over-arching trees. “I will belong here forever,” I thought.

   But the world changes. My parents sold their place next door. That left me with strangers on both sides, my neighbor to the south having died a few years before.  The couple four houses down, the first to live on that beach road year round, retired to Arkansas. A year after they sold the house, it burned down.

   While our beach dwindled, the next beach over increased. Cottages were ripped out, replaced with summer homes—thousands of square feet, three-car garages, circular drives and mailboxes encased in concrete pillars. My country refuge was looking more and more like the urban neighborhoods I wanted to escape.

   And so I sold it.  I felt no grief.  I was only relieved to have it over, the way I have been with other relationships that went on too long. I know I loved that place, but I know that what I loved about it is gone, and holding onto the place would not make the love come back.

   I only hope that, someday, I find another place I love as much.

                                                                  September, 1999

   
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