Guernsey Lake

“I will share Guernsey Lake with her,” says Lillian.

What 4-year-old Lilly, with her airy bright gold curls and inquisitive eyes, does not know, is that Guernsey Lake was once mine, and that I am, indeed, sharing it with her.

The car ride to the lake was unbearably long. We stuffed ourselves into the big blue station wagon, the kind with wood paneling around the outside and one huge window in the back that no longer went up and down because when my dad sunk the car in the lake, it ruined the electric window. The swamp-mobile, as we called it ever since the sinking, smelled like wet dog and it did not have air conditioning.

We would turn down the windy and steep gravel driveway that was overcrowded with wood and blackberry bushes, and finally see the lake. The first thing I would always do is run from the car, bare foot, through the mound of sand brought in each year by my grandpa, to the end of the long wooden dock, just to put my big toe into the water and test it out, and look to see how many weeds had grown since we last were there.

Friendly voices of love chattered behind me on the lawn chair clad deck, and my grandpa would ask me for some sugar. I would give him a kiss on the cheek and a long hug, and forever smell like his cologne.

I would spend hours sitting at the end of the long wooden dock with my head phones and tape player, singing Bette Middler and Phantom of the Opera at the top of my lungs, never realizing nobody else could hear the music in my head. My grandma would paint the beautiful orange popsicle sunsets and I would write in my journal.

During the day I swam for hours until my fingers and toes were prunes and my bathing suit had more sand in it than the bottom of the lake. My cousins would swim out to the wooden raft, and daringly swim underneath it. I remember only swimming under the raft once in my whole life.

The rope swing was infinite. On the beach, sat a ladder. On a branch that reached the sky out over the water a rope was tied. Holding onto the loose end of the thick rope, I would climb the ladder to the very top. Then with all the courage in the world, I would jump off the ladder and soar out over the water. I thought I could touch the clouds. Then I’d fall into the water and instantly be engulfed in weedy slimy hands touching but not grabbing. I’d hold my breath for as long as I could, and surface from under the water with a huge gulp of air.

My aunt would swim far out into the deep, deep waters of Guernsey Lake. I would join her sometimes. I tried to look as peaceful as she was, treading water on her back, becoming one with the water and letting the sun warm her face.

The spiders were big and scary. The bathroom smelled musty and old. Thunderstorms were glorious and heavenly. The rain—pelting and beating on the roof, watching it make the lake dance with no rhythm and no agenda.

Thunderstorms still make the water dance, but now I think there is a rhythm and I think there is an agenda. Perhaps to make the world stop and appreciate each other, or to just make the world stop and see.

The dock is not as long, the water not as deep. I swim across the lake to train and get exercise and hardly ever take a moment to float on my back, never being one with the lake.

The infinite rope swing is no more, neither is the tree that held infinity. It died. We use it for campfire wood now. Lilly makes s’mores with too much chocolate and her face gets sticky and sweet.

The voices of love have exponentially increased so that everything in the atmosphere at Guernsey Lake breathes love. It’s amazing.

The dock wood is old and splintery, but the same pontoon sits in the same spot and makes the same plopping song as it bobs up and down with the water. Now I sit at the end of the dock and never take the time to watch the orange popsicle sunsets because I have friends to see, places to be.

My grandpa asks Lilly for sugar and tells me I’m beautiful instead. I wish I could be at Guernsey Lake more. What I realize is that Lilly is sharing Guernsey Lake with me now, and I hope with all heart it is just as magical for her.