Yesterday my husband unveiled our pontoon boat, stripping
its winter cocoon-like shell (plastic shrink-wrap) until it stood naked and open
to the sky for the first time in many months. Then he and a couple of buddies hauled it to the public landing
where it slipped turtle-like into the lake, an amphibian vehicle happy to be
seaborne again.
The annual maiden voyage followed this afternoon. Appropriately
clad in swimming suits even though the water is still much too cold for
swimming, we cast off from the pier and the pontoon churned across the water to
our favorite private cove. Delicious
water-laden wind bathed us, every inch of us. This was our element.
We put down anchor in a spot surrounded by sharp green spikes
(new cattails on shore, unfurled lily pads in the water) and lingered there for an hour of quiet stillness. A pair of
wild swans provided our only company.
I lay belly-down on the front platform, my nose only a
couple of feet above the water’s surface, and watched blinking fairy-lights
scamper toward me: sunlight reflecting from the tops of tiny waving ripples. They approached eagerly like an
advancing fleet of shiny messengers announcing the forthcoming summer. I inhaled deeply, recognizing both
tangible (obvious, immediate) and invisible (mysterious, ongoing) realities. Sun
and water. Comfort and hope. I was home.
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