“A lake is a landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.”
Thoreau
We’re on the cusp of spring. As lights bloom from windows darkened by night, spring has danced away again. The fickle wind tonight sides with winter, madly blowing back the cold. It’s a rearguard battle. For a time, winter will lie heavily on the land. But spring will trip lightly back again…and again…and again… until winter has been routed once more. The welling joy brought by warmer weather is now tamped down, yet it sneaks out gloriously at random moments. The sun teases, promising what it can’t or won’t yet deliver, yet the promise is one that will soon come true. And so I wait, mostly patiently.
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Today I take a walk around the small lake that lies near our housing development. Although it’s really a run-off lake, the wonderful park system in our Chicago suburb has made it a lovely place. Now it too waits patiently for spring, surrounded by dead and battened-down grass punctuated by brittle brown stalks of last year’s milkweed topped by mostly empty pods. Almost everything looks as though it would snap off easily. Trash is enmeshed everywhere, filling me with rage at those who thoughtlessly throw out what could so easily be thrown away.
Geese sit on the ice, kept warm by fat and feathers, I suppose. Others waddle away, bottoms twitching pertly, as I walk by. Later when the goslings arrive, I may have to detour at times to avoid hissing, belligerent parents, but for now they’re content to move. I’ve learned to hiss right back, which works most of the time. The ice at the edge of the pond is thin now with water visible in places. Not far out, though, it’s still winter white and firm-looking, though I wouldn’t test it with my weight. It holds the geese without a problem.
In the mud I see a large dog print, large enough to be a Hound-of-the-Baskervilles puppy. On the other side of the lake is an empty deck where often a big, fluffy-haired white dog barks out of boredom at people passing by. He’ll probably be sad to see winter leave, his fur a distinct disadvantage in summer’s heat. Still, that’s far away from today. We haven’t even reached spring warmth yet.
I get only a short distance before my iPod stops working. I forgot to charge it after my last walk and now I leave the earbuds in to keep the wind out of my ears. My mind wanders, thinking about writing this post, then dancing on to other random thoughts. I have the path to myself, sans geese, and it is, as our older daughter once said when she was little, “a beautiful day.”
This, that and the other thing 