Trinity Lake - Day 4 - Morning

 

"Cover my earth mother four times with many flowers.

Let the heavens be covered with the banked-up clouds.     
Let the earth be covered with fog; cover the earth with rains.
Great waters, rains, cover the earth. Lightning cover the earth.
Let thunder be heard over the earth; let thunder be heard..."
                                     
                                                                                        -Zuni Prayer
                                    
Somehow, the words I read in the wee hours of the still dark morning, (one of the prayers reflecting on the elements), have become prophecy.
As all begins to lighten, I crawl out of the tent and into a world of fog.  This dissipates slowly, but the day stays grey and cloud covered, as if the fog has moved upward just enough to reveal the flat grey lake and muted shores.

I get the morning fire going, a really good blaze. Even though it is relatively warm, there is so much moisture about.
That, and I need the comfort of the fire.

Although, once I have had two cups of tea, oatmeal, toasted pita with peanut butter and half a can of fruit cocktail, I do let the fire go out in order to rig up a tarp over the fireplace.
I find one of my extra tarps and lay it out. I want to angle it so that, if it pours, the rain will run down the tarp and away from my site, be high enough not to trap the smoke beneath, and low enough to keep the rain from putting out the fire.
I have a tarp with twenty feet of fine strong rope attached to each corner for this purpose. I throw the rope attached to one corner over a tree branch about twelve feet up and down the other side and secure this around the tree-trunk .
Now with a starting point, I try to figure out which corner to secure next.
There is a bit of trial and error involved, but after an hour or so, I have rigged something up.
The tarp, olive green, is quite well camouflaged. It is angled to drip well away from my tent, which, having its own waterproof fly, is pretty much safe from leakage, at least so far.
And so, ready for anything, I get my fire going again.

                                                           *

It doesn't rain.
It just threatens to, a sulky grey sky brooding overhead.
With no distant rumbles, I decide to have a morning paddle around the bay.
There is a stillness. 

I paddle out, enjoying the movement through the silky water.
Except for the drips from the paddle's blade, the canoe moves soundlessly.
Silent and slow, enough to feel a part of it all, I follow the rocky shoreline.
The water's surface flat, glasslike.
I can see a good six or eight feet into the depths - the slanted rocky shoreline below the water, rocks, pebbly floor, sticks that have been swept there, the weedy underwater growth.
I paddle over what looks like a dead tree underwater, or perhaps the framework of something. Thinking it may be interesting to photograph, I circle back to take another look.
I startle slightly when I see it again.
The structure, a boat of sorts, mirky and green, looks almost human with its ribs facing upward, one broken and rotted gunwale pointing like a long thin arm toward the surface.
I think of Flint's pointer in 'Treasure Island', a shiver going through me.


                                                            *


1966

It was the end of the summer, my inaugural summer of The Loop.
And while I wanted to see my family, I had trouble imagining life away from camp, 

life without Ginny. 

She promised to write, and said that she had already signed up as a staff member for the next summer, as a way of softening the ten month separation. 
Chip and Jessie too, assured me that they were returning, that we'd carry on where we'd left off, but I was nearly overwhelmed with sadness at leaving the lake, the people, the summer.
Why was it hitting me so hard - so much harder than last year, and so much more than it seemed to affect all of the others? I certainly loved my family, and was leaving camp for a week at the cottage, the whole family together. 
Perhaps it was a change in me, some sort of change deep within ME.

I cried through the entire journey from camp to cottage. I wasn't really much of a crier, and at first my mother was very sweet about my grief. 

But after twenty minutes, she lost patience with me. 
I can see it now - why it upset her. 
She saw me, I'm sure, as unreasonable, spoilt, a drama queen.

My father just drove on, pointing out birds, scenery, the first changes in colour, in his usual patient way. My brothers weren't to return until the next day, meaning for me a rare occasion of spending an entire day and night alone with my parents.
I pulled myself together for their sake.

I noticed, the next evening, that Dennis, too, had changed. He was taller and leaner, and as well, now stronger than me. 
My father was keen to see our camp skills during that week at the cottage, swimming and canoeing primarily. My three eldest brothers had improved greatly in swimming, Arthur now ready to take his Instructor's, and both Mark and John to do their Bronze Cross. Dennis had (after two tries) managed his Intermediate Red Cross, as had I, (in one). 
And although we were all more than competent in a canoe, I had worked hard that summer. 
During our week at the cottage, I began taking a canoe out to solo in the early morning while my brothers still slept. I remember one time paddling hard out into the lake, (imagining I was with Chip and Jessie), and sweeping to turn, caught a glimpse of light off my father's binoculars, as he watched me from the deck. 
My father, not being the type to shower his offspring with praise, later intimated that he'd been impressed. 

I had always gone about in bathing suit bottoms or shorts during hot weather at the cottage. It was during that week that my mother told me to start wearing a top. I said nothing, as I was embarrassed, and had no desire to get into it with my mother about girl matters. I grudgingly began to wear a small ratty red and white striped t-shirt which had belonged, at one time or another, to each of my siblings. It prompted me to look at myself carefully in the bathroom mirror that night, and I was horrified to see the tiny bulges beginning to develop on my chest, unnoticed by me before.

Later in the week, in what came as a massive shock, my mother asked me if I had started my period over the summer. Only what she asked was, had I begun to menstruate. I knew what she meant, as it was talked about often enough in a cabin full of eleven and twelve year old girls, but it struck me as odd, as she'd never before brought the subject up with me, or used the word 'menstruate' in my presence, or given me any material to read on the matter, that she expected me to know what she was talking about. 
I suppose, until that time, I had behaved pretty much as one of the boys, and the subject of girl's physical changes was deeply foreign to me. All I knew (and all Jessie knew, for that matter), had come from Chip. 

Chip, with older sisters, a year older than me, and with a vivid imagination, had told Jessie and me extraordinary things about reproduction, (not, as I would learn later, totally accurate), but nevertheless the sum total of my education. 
With my mother waiting for a reply, I turned crimson and answered with a single word.
No.