Musings of a Compulsive Thinker

Once More to the Lake

Summertime, cool morning air, the idyllic lake surrounded by towering trees: this is one of those iconic, near-perfect experiences which, once passed, we wish could have stretched for just a little longer.

"I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings, when the lake was cool and motionless, remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and of the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen ... as I was always the first up I would dress softly so as not to wake the others, and sneak out into the sweet outdoors and start out in the canoe, keeping close along the shore in the long shadows of the pines. I remembered being very careful never to rub my paddle against the gunwale for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral."

(excerpt: "Once More to the Lake" - E.B. White, 1941)

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Labels: imagine yourself here, literature, ponderings

posted by the alygator @ 1:39 PM