you live, you learn

The water always works it's magic into my body. Early morning fog, heavy like grief - mayflies resting easily - the smell of slate rocks and dew. It's alchemy. It's medicinal. It's a balmy affair, sincere with understanding. There is never a trip to the lake that leaves me unsatisfied.

Can I say those things even if this trip was wrought with a dissonance so uncomfortable I had to shift my heart; stick my hand under my sternum and adjust that thing, slippery with pain? I think I can. The thing about magic is it's mysterious. And we can let it be.

Let me just tell you this: my cousin killed a snake. I begged him not to. Tried to reason with him. Please, you know? I said. I said, it doesn't make sense to kill for the sake of killing. That snake is hurting no one, that snake is just being a snake. Sitting in the water like we do. Sitting and resting like the mayflies. Sitting like this lake sits - peaceful and full of life and essential his surroundings.

My papa, with his wide brimmed hat to shade his nose from the sun, said he was an adult before he could give respect to life the way it deserves. He confided he used to kill birds. He used to kill birds with a gun to just kill birds with a gun. And, he continued, he wished he didn't. He has shame folded up and hidden in his back pocket. "We grow up," he reminded me.

He said he remembers when he used to hate gay people, too. More shame, more sadness. But we grow up, he said. We grow into love. We grow into understanding. Be gentle with him, he said. Be gentle with him, he'll grow.

The next morning, his friend at the dock died. Heart attack in his houseboat. His widow called my papa first - and we cried and cried. We sat with her while she shook and drank her coffee. My papa promised the dead man's wife that he will finish the eaves-trough on the starboard side - and he'll maintain the boat while she's away. We love you, he told her. We loved him, too. And together, drinking coffee in the quiet, sitting at a table that 4 hours before a dead man sat, we gave life the respect it deserves.

We grow up, you know? We grow into understanding and love. And, this now, I'm sure of.

You Belong With Me

Can you even believe I learned how to water ski in a cove named Lick Run? And a few years later, my Papa taught me to slalom in a bight we call Paradise. My dad caught his last catfish in the green waters across from Message Beach. Kingfishers nest off of Hummingbird Hill and the most coveted arm of our lake, of course, is Cell Point.

The hills above Indian Creek were bought by an old man who cleared the trees, promptly died and now his estate is all for sale. Cedar Hill Marina sells the best deep fried pickles. Wolf River Cliffs tested my guts every year until someone banged his head and died. The Milky Way trail and meteor showers make my brain explode out in the middle of this lake.

This lake belongs to me like my gray shirt belongs to me. But also, like the universe belongs to me. The summer my dad died, we wondered if it'd be a place of grief. It was, but the water cleaned our wounds. We wondered, this winter, if this summer would be different because my nena's health - but we're anticipating the clear water to work it's magic. It will. We know it will.

The limb lines will hang after the fisherman chore the shore. The slate rocks will lay until we pick them up. Poison Ivy will eat up our flesh. The sun will bake us. And we will drink Grey Goose in our orange juice and Bailey's in our coffee and listen to Billy Joel loudly.

And even though it's just a summer place, Dale Hollow water pumps through all the Andersons' bodies. We know the lake like we know ourselves.