Oh, the deliciousness of falling asleep to the sounds of the lake lapping against the shoreline! We didn't have digital photography back then, when I was little, and thrilled to the first night of sleeping at the lake house. This one will have to do.
Slipping into bed next to an open window, feeling the fresh breeze off Lake Erie, hearing the gentle, or sometimes roaring, surf lapping or pounding along the now-dark beach, I listened. Wondering if the morning would hold clouds or sun or fog. All magic to one whose day-to-day was far from any water this size.
"Red sun at morning, sailors take warning. Red sun at night, sailors' delight." My grandfather quoted this frequently, a smile curving around the ever-present evening pipe, its cherry-scented smoke curling to the ceiling above his head.
It had been dark already when we arrived this night. Too late to use the sunset as an indicator for the day ahead and Grampa wasn't telling. I knew he was glad to see me by the fresh twinkle in his eyes, bright behind spectacles 'specially made for him after he had cataracts removed from his eyes. I thought those must have been 'bad cats' to have to have them taken out like that. Such is the way of a child's mind.
This night, mind and body were humming with anticipation of the fortnight to be spent here, at my favorite spot at 'the lake'. I wriggled in anticipation of waking with the sunrise, sliding into my bathing suit, which I had pulled from my little suitcase (it would hold only an overnight's worth now) and laid ready on the extra bed.
In the morning, as was my custom, I would sneak out across the main room of the cottage, seeing how far I could venture toward the front door before my Grandmother appeared. Attired in her bathing costume as well, a huge smile on her face, "Good morning" were always her first whispered words. Not to wake anyone else in the house, you see. This was our secret time.
With Grampa snoring away in their room, and my parents either asleep or not present, in the front room on the other side of the little house, Grandma and I stealthily crept outside. "5 AM" she would chuckle to herself. "My early bird," as she laid a gentle hand to the back of my bed-rumpled head.
"Shall we go for our dip?" At my grinning nod, she walked down the steps, me skipping down the front hill, to meet her on the seawall. From there, down more steps to the pier and the beach. There was a clean beach there, then. Full of shells and pebbles and softly muted sea glass that shone brightly when wet and gleamed with frosty softness when it dried in the sun.
I later learned that those precious treasures appeared because "people" had tossed glass bottles overboard from the fishing or recreational boats that populated local waters.
"You never know," Grampa intervened one day. "That lovely blue one might have come all the way from Canadian waters." Always one for a chuckle, he tried to cheer my frown at the idea that people could be so thoughtless.
This morning, Grandma met me as I was about to quietly and stealthily open the front door facing the lake. This door was rarely used, as entry to the house was from the back garden or the side door, with its ever-present pan of water for sloshing sandy feet. I had figured out the trick of the front door early on though and was just sliding the latch open, oh so softly, when she appeared.
"Let's go out the back" she suggested, smiling. "Put your zoris on...I have seen a few bees."
The local bees were my nemeses. Every summer since I could remember, having been brought here since infancy, I somehow managed to step on a bee. Sometimes I thought they waited in the garden or grass just for my arrival.
Grandma kept a little bottle of Adolph's Meat Tenderizer in her spice cubby just for me. When the beesting would begin to swell, she would sprinkle the tenderizer on the big lump, covering it with a witch hazel poultice. It always worked. I never knew why. Nor did I know why the bees chose me, my feet and legs, for their special honor.
So this morning, my first here for the summer, Grandma wasn't taking any chances. "Zoris," she said again, pointing. I slid my feet onto the little slabs of foam rubber, liking the yellow stripes the straps made across the tops of my tanned little feet. I liked the flapping sounds too, a funny counterpoint against the soft sounds of the surf against the sand.
There it was, the sunrise, light streaming on the water, the flock of local geese, ducks, and swans, swarming around the pier to see if we might have brought breadcrumbs down with us. "Not this time!" I shouted to my friends. "I'll remember tomorrow!" Off they paddled, a bit disgruntled perhaps but serene in their morning fishing endeavors.
Oooooh! The sand! Off came the zoris as I crept across the broken patch of pier that always seemed to be covered in slippery green moss, and onto the sandy stretch. Curling my toes against the morning chill, I raced the length of the little private beach, seeing what was to be seen, greeting each and every rock, stone, pebble, and even dead fish with glee.
Grandma was already in the water. Her 'morning dip' one of the joys of her summer days. I followed soon after, jumping and diving and swimming underwater to see the Perch swimming between the pilings of the big pier. The greenness of that underwater world was magic! The fish wary but unafraid. Grampa must not have started fishing yet this year.
Grandma pointed to a stripe of grey along the horizon. "Is there a freighter coming in?" Always a big event to see the huge freighters from Canada making their way to port. "No," she replied. "That looks like a bit of weather coming our way."
"A three-day blow?" I asked excitedly. I never knew why it would always be three days' worth of weather, just that the winds would be wild and whip the water into a frenzy. I loved it all.
"I don't think so," she said again, shaking her head. "We'll ask Grampa to look through the binoculars and see what he thinks."
"But he's asleep... " I whined a little, impatient to know what was in store. By now we wandered, hand in hand, up the little path along the side of the house to the foot-tub and into the kitchen for our breakfast. The others would have theirs when they decided to get up, but we were always hungry after our swim. Or maybe everyone would sleep in and then there would be pancakes!
"That's a fog bank" was Grampa's decided opinion later on, as he looked through one of his many pairs of binoculars, strategically placed near the front windows for his daily perusals. "Oh." I was a little disappointed. If the fog stayed 'in' it would spoil the sunrise... but not our swim, so my frown turned upside down.
That night, exhausted from a day of sun and sand and water, I climbed into bed to a familiar sound. The fog horn! I had forgotten the fog horn! Why did its' sound disturb everyone so?
Years later, when I learned to tone and found the signature sound in my chest that thrummed through my whole body, it was this sound. My body fell completely into the memory of falling asleep to its resonance. A steady pulsing of tone the adults called 'monotonous' and wished would stop so they could sleep.
For me, with my childlike wonder intact and my body responding by cuddling deeper into the sheets, the fog horn was a reminder. It reminded me of harmony in body and mind. It relaxed me, as does the memory, still. It reminded me of peace and rest and joy in a day of simple pleasures.
It reminds me still, of the joyful anticipation of love and light as my body waits for yet another day. Only now, I tone this sound. And, as my body vibrates, it remembers the lake house and the innocent joy of the child within me, waiting to wake to the light on the water once again.
