NATURAL WOMAN
Through an ever-changing cast of characters and the gift of stillness, the lake whispers its lessons without saying a word.
The sun has yet to dry the dew from the grass, but the bluebirds have been up for hours by the time I stumble to the porch. It’s so quiet here that it isn’t hard to sleep in, but the aroma of brewing coffee has lured me from the bed, and steam rises from the cup I poured before dropping into the rocking chair. Lewis sits in the matching chair, the dog at his feet. Already on his first nap of the day, the dog raises an eyebrow in acknowledgement of my late arrival, and then drifts back off to chase imaginary rabbits. In seconds, his short legs are running in place.
“They’ve come back,” my husband whispers, training binoculars on the weathered bluebird box mounted on a post in the flower bed. Over the years, we’ve watched many generations of bluebird parents raise their chicks in this box, and this year’s couple is a sure sign that spring has arrived on the lake. Sipping our coffee, we watch the pair gather sticks and grass, each flying back to the box, pausing for only a few seconds to deposit their carefully selected building materials before returning to their task.
Many trips later, the female disappears into the opening. Waiting patiently for her to emerge as she has dozens of times this morning, the male flits from branch to branch, clutching dried grass in his beak. If he had fingers he’d be drumming them on a twig. What could she be doing in there? Rearranging furniture? Plumping pillows? Puffing out his rust colored chest and straightening his vivid blue feathers, he makes the foolhardy decision to hurl himself headfirst into the small hole to hurry her along. Within the blink of an eye, he and his grass are unceremoniously ejected from the box. Poking her head out of the hole, his mate directs a few choice chirps at his fleeting back as he takes off like a small blue rocket for the safety of a nearby branch.
We burst into laughter at the poor, confused bird. Raising an eyebrow, I turn to Lewis, “I think there’s a lesson to be learned there.”
We don’t come to the lake as often as we’d like, and when we do our time is often spent doing chores and yardwork at our place on Jack’s Hole, a calm little cove protected from the wide open, big water of Lake Moultrie. Even so, it has always been a place of refuge, and there has always been something sacred about these quiet mornings on the porch that allow us to simply be still for a while.
As I balance my coffee cup on my knee, a family of Canada geese waddles up the bank and into the yard. Yesterday there were half-dozen goslings alongside the parents patiently herding the fuzzy babies. Today there is an even dozen. We’ve noted many times that despite their devotion to each other, it isn’t unusual for one nesting pair to swap kids with another, picking up an extra pair or two, or farming their own brood out for a morning paddle. Sometimes, it does take a village.
Behind them, a mallard pair glides serenely across the water, leaving barely a ripple in their wake, and across the cove, an alligator slips into the water. I shudder. Neither duck appears concerned with the known or unknown perils that lurk above and below the surface, nor do they show the effort it takes to swim against the current. Many of us have been where they are, and know firsthand that behind the calm façade they are paddling for their lives.
After watching the feuding bluebirds call a truce and return to the business of nest building this morning, I put my feet up on the porch railing and lean back in the rocker, thinking about the many lessons and the real life mysteries, comedies, tragedies and dramas that the lake has shared with us.
Take the three white squirrels that just turned up in the yard one day, and have entertained us for two summers. Rumors abound, but where they came from remains a mystery, as does the reason they show up every afternoon to put on a show, posing provocatively on the swing like swimsuit models, jumping into the air or chasing each other for no good reason, and once, spending a day carefully building a nest on a branch too far out from the tree. We cried at the sight of them helplessly watching their hard work blown away in the wind.
I run through the memories of watching my own little gosling toddle through the grass at the edge of the water. I hear her squeal of delight at the quarter-sized turtle she has discovered, and remember a summer day when I watched her cast her Snoopy fishing pole from the dock, squinting into the sun of a perfect sky. Her love and respect for nature, and her special bond with her father was the catch hauled in with every worm he put on her hook.
In my mind’s eye I see my parents glide by the dock in their silver canoe. They are young and healthy, and I think about how it all goes by in the blink of an eye. I see all the kids and grandkids lining the big stone bench in the yard, grinning for the camera. We learned the hard way not to take moments like these for granted—they can be as rare and unexpected as three white squirrels. The next time we all gathered together, it was for a final farewell to one taken far too soon.
Lewis brings me a fresh cup of coffee, before setting out with his fishing rod. The string of bream he gave our neighbor yesterday is a cautionary tale worth remembering. Not everything that is bright and shiny ends up being good for you. He stops in the middle of the yard to watch an osprey plummet into the dark water for the fish she needs for her family. Rising in a flurry of feathers, shaking droplets of water into the air, she positions the fish headfirst into the wind before sailing into the air. It’s a behavior that I’ve never noticed before, but it makes perfect sense. Instinct has taught her how to lessen the resistance of the wind when it blows against her. I can think of many ways we should apply the strategy to our own lives.
We’ll be leaving tomorrow, and it always makes me a little sad. But I hope that as we pack the car, turn off the icemaker, and check the thermostat before locking the door, something intangible slips like a shadow in between the wet towels or into the bag of groceries that won’t keep until the next trip. I hope that we come across it on a day when we need it to humble us, or teach us about love and loyalty; to give us courage to dive into dark water and rise to shake it from our feathers. I hope it reminds us that we all need to keep on paddling, and that it is important to occasionally jump into the air for no good reason. In those moments I hope we will stop to remember, and to be grateful for the lessons of the lake.
