The Lake

There is no place quite as amazing or intriguing as the lake at night.  In the summer of sophomore year, the only important thing was to pull in experience and to touch, taste, feel, and be alive.  Lake Alvin was a mucky lake if you waited too long in the summer to visit.  During the high noon hour an annoyed, sweaty college student sat at the entrance of our Midwest paradise, demanding money for entrance.  This left daytime lake visits to Wall Lake, more populous and at a different end of town.  When the burning sun sank below the horizon and traded shifts with the gleaming lunar orb, the rules were changed in our youthful perception.  Lake Alvin warped into a secret retreat, more difficult to find in the black cloak of nightfall.  The lake-keeper had left, and the shore deserted enough to frolic in the cool sand and even cooler water.  The moon-lit diamonds glittered across the lake on the crystal clear nights.

We lived the most those nights--like when we lay close to shore half in the water, spouting out philosophy and salting the lake with tears, and bringing it to life with laughter.  There were no battles ahead, no worries behind, but only a drunk happiness life can gift wrap for you.  For one summer, love would live freely, not in the name of romance and unruly boys, but within the girls who understood your feminine confusion.  The end of those nights brought about storm weather and clouds--a looming dark forecast of a change in the weather.  We knew it wouldn't live in the cold dead winter, and eventually it died of old age.  If that was happiness tasted, it was certainly sweet.  But all else aside I'm dying to live the lake life we had with each other.  But the memory is a tangerine, as I know I'll never taste it again, an intangible moment.

To My Son:

I love the way your hair looks after a bath--fluffy and downy--and how it dries almost instantly
I love your gummy, toothless smile
I love the way you stretch your whole body when someone picks you up after sleeping
I love when you make a teeny, tiny "o" with your lips and look around
I love your long fingers
I love the hair on your shoulders
I love the way you completely relax when you eat
I love the way your curl up your lip into a half-smile as you drift off to sleep
I love the way you look around at the world, taking in everything you can see
I love the way you sigh a huge sigh of relief once you are calmed after being SO upset
I love the way you always try to sleep with your face covered--blankets, hands, anything
I love how much you love water--the sound of it, being in the bathtub--you are so content
I love how you lightly scratch your fingers on my shoulder when you fall asleep on it
I love the tuft of hair on the top of your head and how it stands every which way
I love how your eyes light up exactly like your father's eyes do when you smile
I love when you "yell" out to the world, quite possibly just to hear your own voice out loud
I love the way you growl at me when your searching for food
I love the way you sleep with your body stretched out--like daddy
I love you, my Tristan-boo--you will always have my heart