CLAMMING
![ocean1v[1].jpg](http://eileenloveman.com/blog/ocean1v%5B1%5D.jpg)
Living on the Lake brings with it knowledge I never thought I would have.
People that live near, on or in bodies of water seem to have a venacular all their own. Phrases and sayings sounding so foreign to me once, now roll off my tongue as well. I am able to participate in conversation surrounding the lake and understand the shorthand associated with it, in order to descibe its many moods.
My teenage years were formed along the Long Island Sound. My first boyfriend had a small dingy, and we spend many a Saturday morning clamming. Casting the net or a small metal box, we would sit for hours talking, only to interrupt our heartfelt discussions quickly and adeptly. He would stand to dump the prizes onto the deck and sort them for good clams, throwing the smaller ones back. Little necks or Quahogs, they were mixed in with other sea life, and once in a while he would retrieve a crab or two. He would stash it in the plastic bucket filled with ice and save it for later. By noontime, the ice melted and appetites ravenous, we would sit on the shore and wait for our friends to join us on the beach.
Years went by and my only exposure to the water was when I visited Cape Cod every fall with my older, married girlfriends. The northeasterners were a hardy bunch, and the I felt a kinship with the woman there who had never left the island. Their faces weatherbeaten and ruddy, there was a strong and confident air about them that spoke of many harsh seasons on the water. Not only survived celebrated, their eyes spoke of a life triumphant and without regret.
I wanted that life, but never knew it would be years more before I saw it.
Science plays a part in the language of life on the lake, more so than any weather forcast could predict. When the lake "turns over" and the bath water become a frigid 40 degrees in a twenty four hour time span, you begin to realize that the waves have a mind of their own. Sand dunes not visible from the shore, become walking byways from one risen pile to another. Seaweed may rise to top one day, coating the rocks with a sticky green film, only to be washed away another day later, shells and rock formations newly deposited along the shore.
It's God's great washing machine, the rinse cycle a reminder that everything which seems cloudy and tinted, will one day be rinsed crisp and clean again, like whites sheets hanging on a clothes line.
Continuing the cycle, day after day, year after year. I know that I will witness it repeated as we enter into our twilight years together.
I will be the old woman on the Lake, the one who sits on the rocks, letting the cold water run between my toes. My face will be lined and my hair will be white, my eyes still the brillant blue that drew him to me in the first place.
It will be my Lake, and I will be hers. Forever more. Because it is where I was meant to be.
Science plays a part in the language of life on the lake, more so than any weather forcast could predict. When the lake "turns over" and the bath water become a frigid 40 degrees in a twenty four hour time span, you begin to realize that the waves have a mind of their own. Sand dunes not visible from the shore, become walking byways from one risen pile to another. Seaweed may rise to top one day, coating the rocks with a sticky green film, only to be washed away another day later, shells and rock formations newly deposited along the shore.
It's God's great washing machine, the rinse cycle a reminder that everything which seems cloudy and tinted, will one day be rinsed crisp and clean again, like whites sheets hanging on a clothes line.
Continuing the cycle, day after day, year after year. I know that I will witness it repeated as we enter into our twilight years together.
I will be the old woman on the Lake, the one who sits on the rocks, letting the cold water run between my toes. My face will be lined and my hair will be white, my eyes still the brillant blue that drew him to me in the first place.
It will be my Lake, and I will be hers. Forever more. Because it is where I was meant to be.
