To swim or not to swim, that was the question. I stand in front of the clothesline, listening to the lulling sound of laughter floating out from inside the cottage behind me. An orange glow spills out through the windows, casting bars of light between the towels, bars that stretch out towards the inky dark forest.
I don’t need to swim, I think, grateful for the sweatshirt and jeans I’m wearing on this August night—bug-less but cool—the last night before we all disperse back to our lives after a week together. I’ll just go down and hang out for a bit on the dock. I grab my towel.
I walk down the long path to the lake, the air thick with the sound of crickets, the smells of the forest soil as heady as red wine. As I come out through the clearing at the water, my eyes take in the last gasp of dusk to the west, and I can make out the silhouettes of my brother and my cousins standing on the dock.
Everyone is looking up. I look too, and I’m entranced by the stars—like late-summer freckles scattered across the cloudless sky. Then there’s a splash, and another, as two shapes dive in. You never regret swimming, I think to myself. But still, I’m cozy. I walk towards my cousin standing near the end of the dock.
“You just missed it,” she says as she ties back her hair. “Your brother sang ‘Nightswimming.’ ” My mind immediately imagines the scene: his voice floating out over the lake, all else silent. A song in its natural habitat.
Another splash pulls me back to the present, and now she’s gone too, leaving only the ripples behind her. I throw down my sweatshirt. “Okay, I’m going in. Eyes to the skies,” I say as I drop my jeans, and my toes push off from the end of the dock in one swift move.
And I’m in. It’s cold, but just for a moment, and then the water feels smooth. I turn onto my back, and I’m adrift in the universe, with nothing but stars around me. I catch up to the others, and we lie back floating almost effortlessly, looking up until, oooh, a shooting star, and another, and another, more than we can count.
We stay like that for a little while, talking out in the deep water like we did when we were teenagers, and then we swim in and dry off. We slide back into our layers, and lie down on the dock, waiting for the next meteorite to streak past. When the shivering sets in, we decide it is time to head back to the warmth of the cottage. And as we stand and hunt around for our shoes, the moon emerges, impossibly giant and golden on the horizon, breathtakingly beautiful.
For me, in this place, on that night, the answer was swim. Definitely swim.
This article was originally published in our September/October 2022 issue.
Related Story This lake association successfully eradicated invasive Eurasian watermilfoil. Here’s how they did it
Related Story This Indigenous researcher wants more clarity around Ontario’s safe consumption guidelines for fish
Related Story 10 tips for towing tubers or waterskiers