The Same Morning for 70 Years on Great Pond
I’ve often heard that history repeats itself, but does life? Maybe.
Lakes have always fascinated me because they provide a mirror on the world, especially when they rest quietly, with nary a ripple. The glassy surface becomes both a reflecting mirror and a microscope at the same time. When I look out to the distant shore line, I can see the double reflection of the trees and the gently moving clouds overhead, creating a balance and symmetry. Then, looking down into the clear water, I spot the trout, even their shadows on the sandy surface. The shoreline rocks dip below the water’s surface telling tales of glaciers over 10,000 years ago.
One lake, called Great Pond, far north in Maine, has taught me more life-long lessons in geology, in community, in botany, and in spirituality than any four-year college could instill.
When I jump into the warm August lake, I can be any age. As I slide deep into the clear water, the caress can feel like my mother’s touch when I was five years old. Of course, at that age, my jump was propelled by the desires to learn to swim and to overcome the fear of the depth. While dog-paddling to the water’s edge and climbing up the steep rocks, I learned how to take risks.
At the age of ten when swimming out into the middle of the wave-strewn water, I learned the importance of teamwork. Then, my friends and I would swim, side by side, out to the Point, then to Pickerel Rock, and finally to Oak Island, a mile away. If I started to falter, the others would encourage me. As a teenager, while standing in the shallows, I could look down and see the sunfish, trout, and pickerel all nibbling at my ankles, questioning me, I, the unfishy intruder. I never wanted to catch them or eat them because they belonged to this lake more than I did. Each species had a specific purpose that worked in harmony to keep the lake clean. I, then, was beginning to question my purpose, my goals.
Always curious, I loved to walk the narrow path along the steep shoreline and watch how the pines grew taller over the decades, how they pushed their roots into the overhanging embankment, supporting the embankment. I learned how one generation of trees could encourage the growth of the next generation as if they could talk to each other. Always, the soft-piney smells would waft on the breezes, creating an aroma that could transport me into any age, especially when I closed my eyes. I could be a child, a teenager, a young adult, a mother, a grandmother.
Throughout my college years as a geography/geology major, I looked forward to returning to the lake in order to see firsthand the work of the glaciers 10,000 years ago. The lateral moraines formed the shore line and a medial moraine dissected the lake, creating its sandy bottom. In places I could walk 50 feet out into the middle of the four mile lake.
Now as a 70 year-old grandmother, I look forward to exploring the lake with my grandchild. But now, instead of teaching him about all the scientific evidence I had seen a lesson that would undoubtedly bore him, I will talk about the feeling of peace, about the importance of finding silence, about the sense of eternity that abides in the infinitude of this mirror on the earth and its microscope into my soul.
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