At some point I became afraid of lakes. Not (I hope, obviously) in a general fashion, of their existence, but specifically of entering them. Oceans too. We could blame it on a few too many years of city living, but I like to think it is something more sacred.
This isn’t fear, I tell myself, it’s reverence.
Which isn’t to say I don’t find it a little ridiculous. I give myself the same look that you do. Come on. Just get in there. This is supposed to be fun. Quit ruining the fun! Or Look at Jamie, in her bikini! She is having fun! Why can’t you be fun like Jamie?
And sometimes I close my eyes and I run into the lake and it feels wonderful and we’re all happy and splashing around and that’s great. Somebody ride the rope swing! Yea! Cannonbaaaaall!
But then, inevitably at some point, I’m standing in the water, staring into it, and I’m thinking about all these grains of sand and the crazy shit that happened to make it sand, the soft piles of decomposing mush and the things that feed on soft piles of decomposing mush, the leeches in the shadows and all the different sizes of fishes and the microbes and the snapping turtles and everything that lives here, everything that’s just trying to get by in the unseeable murk and here I am trampling and splashing all up on its grill.
If you’re not at least a little afraid of entering a lake, I think you must just not have thought about it too much.
