July 17

 

July 17, 2020

I’m an on-again off-again member of an Essay Club, a group that meets via Zoom each week to read our writing on a consensual topic or rubric. At the height of our COVID isolation in Baltimore, this routine became a welcomed highlight, a self-imposed academic rigor that put a rhythm in our week: the reflection about the topic, the writing, the editing and polishing, and then, of course, the readings and lovely dialogue which followed. Our writerly colleagues from Baltimore, Virginia, Missouri, England, and even natives of New Zealand brought a range of sensibilities to the table which have been tonics of calm, humor, and even optimism in our isolation.

Although yesterday was a grey, blustery day bringing a stiff breeze from the south and some stiff chop up the wider fetches of the lake, we were able to get out on the water and introduce our New Zealand friends, in person, to Lake George. And ironically, the rubric for this week’s essay is “gratitude”…a couple of pages about the idea and what role it might be playing in our lives right now.

You see there this is going, right?

With the wind building behind us we cruised up to Bolton, picked up some awesome hot sandwiches  from The Waters Edge for our picnic (what a wonderful crew and a spotless operation!), and enabled our guests to take in the magnificence of the Lake: The Narrows, Paradise Bay, Black Mountain Point, The Mother Bunch, Heulett’s Landing, Fourteen Mile Island, the protective lees of Refuge, Phelps, and Elizabeth’s Islands as the wind really kicked up on the way home to Cleverdale, and then home. Our Kiwi friends hardly needed a running commentary from the likes of us to appreciate our Queen of American Lakes for what she is, and at moments I felt the profound gratitude that any of us feel for the chance to introduce dear friends to a dear friend, in this case to a place that we love so much.

Awakening this morning to the news of 138,000 dead, a new record of 70,000 new cases, and the tragic politicization of the COVID battle…as well as to the sustained struggle for social justice over the long fetch of history…well, it seems that, this morning, “gratitude” for my current state as a host and a lake resident is wholly inadequate for what I feel. It just doesn’t cut it.

The retired English teacher in me whispers, “Well, what does cut it, Al? Don’t give up. Find the words. Fashion the phrases.”

Privileged? Lucky? Blessed? How have I earned such friends? How have I come to call this place home? How does one pay it back, or pay it forward, for the confluence of circumstance and modest achievement that enables me to sit on this porch this morning, look up this perfect lake, and greet these lovely people sharing coffee with me this morning? Answers to these kind of questions are what real teachers teach and at 68 I’m still a struggling if still-eager student, at least still asking the question.