At Water's Edge

     I live near a small lake here in Lynchburg. It’s a private lake, the only access afforded is for those who have lakefront homes. There is a road that rings the entire lake and the folks on the far side of the lake probably work out some sort of arrangement with the neighbors across the street.

     My neighborhood adjoins this neighborhood, so I am not lakeside at all. I can only catch a glimpse of it as I turn down one street on my way home. But I walk the circuit around the lake every morning. It’s my daily cardio; a four-mile course with some pretty steep hills in between the flat runs, and some breathtaking views.

     Living on the lake would be heaven for me. I see the floating docks and the canoes and pontoon boats moored alongside and I imagine how wonderful it would be to walk out my door and spend the first hour of my day sitting there watching the lake come to life.

     It’s a sleepy lake, “leave no wake” rules mean no water skiers, or jet skis. It’s meant for the more mature folks. There are more visiting grandchildren than children living there. But that would be fine with me as well, My daughter is grown and would also welcome the quiet.

      It’s situated so that the sun rises at the far end and spills a golden swath across the length and breadth. I can imagine sitting there in the early mornings…or late into the night, listening to the sounds of the lake. The lapping of the water on the pilings of the dock. The loons. The heron. A fish, splashing as it surface- feeds. The peepers.

     For those whose hearts are drawn outdoors, being waterside is both magical and calming. My fondest memories were spent near a body of water somewhere. I grew up going to the beaches of New Jersey and Delaware and Maryland. For me, even as I thrilled to the sights and sounds of the boardwalk and the amusement piers and the crowds

…there was the awe of the ocean.

      As I grew older, I found myself finding greater joy in just looking out at the vast expanse. The rhythmic push and pull of the tide and the waves against the shore gave cover to the thoughts churning in my soul. It is easy to lose oneself in the awesome hugeness that is the Atlantic.

     Or I would spend my days on the Chesapeake -in my estimation as beautiful a place as any other in the world—and again, be drawn to the isolation of my thoughts and the safety to plumb the depths of my heart, that the enormity of that place provides.

     One of my very favorite places in the world, is Battery Park in Old New Castle, near where I grew up in Delaware. At this point, the Delaware ends its journey from upstate New York, through Pennsylvania, through Philadelphia, where, by this point, she has grown to a body of water so large she handles tankers and freighters. At Battery Park, she is merging with the Delaware Bay and then the Atlantic.

     I love walking beside this mighty river. Nothing affects her flow. Nothing alters the millennia or so that she’s seen, without changing course. There is a beautiful walking trail along about 3 miles of her course, with the river on one side and a vast wetland on the other. I find it the perfect place for listening to Rich Mullins, or -most often—to silence.

     Here in Lynchburg, I have had to adjust to the lack of these large bodies. I have the James, and I have fallen in love with the headwaters, where I fish…far upstream from the city. The James River Gorge is as close to the natural beauty of the Chesapeake as I have found here. I must admit…learning to fish a river has been a challenge and I’m not very good at it. I have never been as skunked as I have been fishing where I fish now. But I go to fish only as a secondary by product of the trip. Just being there, on that water, listening to the gurgle, seeing the wildlife. The trip is the reason. The fishing is a wonderful piece of a larger puzzle.

     Most times throughout my life as an outdoorsman, being waterside has been refreshing and re-energizing. Usually those days were almost fruitless where my quarry was concerned. While I often failed to catch my prey, I never missed on the soul connection I was seeking. While I was outside, hunting or fishing, inside I was stalking another prey, in the rugged wilderness of my soul. Peace. Sense. Order. Wisdom. Those were the trophies I was stalking in my heart, as the river rolled by, or the waves crashed on the shore, or the stream splashed amidst the rocks.

     I think of this as I walk my circuit around Timber Lake each morning and see the docks and the canoes and the small sailboats. I think of the wonderous silence of sitting on one of those docks, and sorting out my day, and my life.

     Always it is the water. The water of a lake or a pond, or a river and a duck blind. Or the massive and boiling Atlantic. I get this from my grandfather. My mothers’ father was a restless man who lived his life with one foot on a boat somewhere, out in the ocean. Early on in his life he had a beautiful thirty-two-foot Cabin Cruiser. He was happy then. But he lost it to a series of bad decisions and spent the rest of his days searching for the piece of himself that went along with that boat. His heart was always on the water and he never got to find that heart again. Or the peace that the water brought him.

     I am much the same. I can’t walk past a lake, or drive by a body of water, without staring, and trying to take it all in as much as I can. On my drive back home to Delaware, there is a point where I-95 passes over the confluence of the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay. The Millard Tydings Bridge spans the chasm at Havre de Grace Maryland. I have driven over that bridge at least five hundred times in my life. Yet, every time I drive over, I try to see out into the bay, then upriver to the Conowingo Dam. There’s nothing different from any of the other hundreds of times I’ve seen it, but I just want to see it again. To take it all in as fast as possible, in the forty-five seconds or so, that it takes to drive across the bridge. Every time, I wish I was down there. Down there, on a boat, at anchor, maybe with a line in the water, maybe not. But down there nonetheless, absorbing the beauty, and running the dredge through my soul once more.

     Waterside is where my heart finds rest. Where I only then begin to make sense of the noise and the cacophony around me. Those of you built in similar fashion understand. If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably been picturing your own watersides as you read. And perhaps imagined the peace they bring to us.