Summer storms impose their own windows of time.  I sit down to write before putting the boat back in the water and heading back to the car, knowing that I can’t stay and pen War and Peace in this tiny cove:

“Five minutes for notes, but I have to beat the storm.”

Story of the day.  Weather predicts thunderstorms around five, commiserate with rush-hour traffic in the city drive home.  Not wanting to be caught in either, I have a narrow window to get on the water, paddle, and get out.

Tomorrow, Nic and I will embark on urban tourism for our anniversary: New York.  The North Star of cities.  So today, a brief kayak trip, an immersion into the natural before an immersion into what Hannah Arendt once called the world of things—the manufactured, the created.  Trading trees for skyscrapers, festooned with wide, reflective windows.

The narrow window for this this paddle stretches from about 3:00-4:30.  Usually at this time, the lake in the Southern heat is a broiler—direct sun from above reflecting off the water—but today it is a light, slow bake, cloud cover presaging potential storm clouds hold the temperature down to the low 80s, a comfortable breeze like the beach at sunset.

A short paddle and to the right, past a pair of lovers and their eager black dog perched on a rock, into a nearly hidden cove.  Tomorrow, I will see the marvels of architecture grown from the soil of concrete and ambition; today, I wonder at this secluded nook, flowers born of mud and time, waters teeming with life—a primordial spot with the basic building blocks swirling and swimming in abundance.  A fellow paddler had reminded me that the lily pads were in bloom—always around my anniversary.  White, yellow, pink resting on flat, intricate green discs.

A simple pleasure, returning annually, that photographs can only approximate, as they miss the enveloping silence, the butterflies dancing off lilacs, the subtle reflection of the world on muddy waters dancing in the light.

But time pushes on, so I leave this Eden. Across the water, large rocks that I’ve seen a hundred times but never explored call me.  They are the perfect distance for today’s short loop. As I near, it appears a house will soon be built above up on the hill, as heavy machinery carves level ground to place a durable dwelling.  It seems my time to pull a Captain Cook on this little nook of the lake will soon fade.  Perhaps later in the summer I will return with a rope to tie off so that I may enjoy this seeming wild spot before it becomes permanently privatized.

Back south down the channel.  Here at the end, the forbidden beach.  A broken piece of kayak, half buried in the mud.  The sound of construction lightly bouncing on the water.  A few birds cawing.  Small ripples dancing off the shore.  I could stay like this forever.

Except that I can’t.  The afternoon carries on.  The science of meteorology has warned me of an impending storm, though the Siren song of the afternoon bid me stay.  Paddle a beautiful, silent rhythm—an aquatic metronome back to shore. Soon to roads and airports and the rivers of humanity in the city that never sleeps.  Soon into the arms of my love for our anniversary. Always, all in good time.