Jul 07, 2010- 1:35 PM
Pastels of green and grey surround me.
At the dock, I sit a while and listen to the morning. I slowly wake, as do the forest dwellers. A few quiet songbirds, but no squirrels this morning. There seem to be fewer squirrels this summer.
Just out front on the lake, a solitary loon drifts in and out of sleep. She floats motionless, her head tucked back. Just a little of her white breast feathers reflect in the water. I’m thinking about diving in for my morning swim, but I hesitate to disturb her.
I always hesitate to swim in the morning. Today the loon gives a handy excuse for procrastinating. The sun hasn’t risen over the hill behind me just yet. Sitting here in the damp, cool air I’m starting to feel the chill.
Just a hundred feet away on the water the first rays of the sun hit the loon. She looks up and around, adjusts a feather on her back and settles into stillness again.
Finally, a couple of squirrels awaken. I hear one on the shore, another on the sauna steps behind me starts to chatter away. A woodpecker rattles on a dry branch off in the forest to the left and a bullfrog harrumphs on the shore to the right. The loon has her head tucked right into her back and sleeps. The quiet returns.
The advantage of sitting here and getting chilled in the damp air is that when I finally do stop dawdling, the water should feel warmer. Or so I try to convince myself.
I have taken this morning swim every day now since the end of May. Yet even with the warmer than normal summer we’re having, the lake remains cool. Cooler now, I think, than it was in early June.
The loon wakes and looks around, then tucks in again for another nap. When I finally do dive in it will make a tremendous noise. The splashing about as I swim will surely disrupt the quiet of the day. And wake the loon.
Standing at the end of the dock with my toes hanging over, I’m ready to dive in. But not yet. I look at the stones under water, the skimmers on top. I watch the little bass minnows swim at the surface. I watch the loon, listen to the quiet of the forest.
A little way off, a second loon appears. It’s coming this way, toward the sleeping one. I’ll have to wait to see what happens. It comes close, closer to its sleeping friend, goes right behind her and around. Nothing changes. After a minute she looks up at him, then tucks in again. He dives, comes up and circles around her.
She wakes and they both start looking into the water.
Now that she is awake, I dive in and swim under water for 20 feet. When I surface, they are both still in the same spot. They look over at me, but don’t seem to be concerned. As I start on the crawl stroke, I realize I’m not really making all that much noise.
The water is cool, but not cold. I revel in the softness of the water, my buoyancy, the sun in my eyes as I reach further out to the bay.
Viki Mather has been writing for Northern Life since the spring of 1984. During 2010, she takes us back to some of those older writings as she prepares to publish a book of ‘In the Bush’. This one was originally published in the summer of 2002.
