different water

Dennis suggested kayaking but I had been watching out the window all afternoon while working on a long long embarrassingly long overdue book chapter and said, "But there are white caps..." and he said, "Not on the bay." Which was true.

So we went.

There were white caps out on the big lake, and long breaking waves out toward Rabbit Island. Little waves were breaking on our beach and farther down toward the Lutheran camp where the water gets shallow suddenly. But we were able to push off easily, and once we were out the big swells coming in behind us rocked us down the bay toward the slough. Closer toward the slough, however, where the bay is more open to the water coming in from the big lake and the wave action is focused by the shape of the beach, the water got choppy. Given the time of evening, the water looked like a big Vija Celmins drawing, exactly.

When we come back from kayaking the water in our little corner of the bay always feels warm and once we have the boats up we just walk ourselves right back out into the bay and languidly breaststroke our way farther out where we can float on our backs in the rocking water to look up at the big sky and the settling evening.

Falling asleep much later, in bed, I was still rocking on that mix of swell and wind and big water evening.

As Laurence has written, I am aware of our luck and am happy to be so aware. Thank you.