The Lady of The Lake

There once was a girl in the Pacific Northwest who held everything in the palm of her hand. Hers was a life of luxury, of affluence and influence – her childhood was served on a silver platter, as she was attended by a devoted mother, a doting father, and free of siblings to ruin the course of their favoritism. A staff assisted her when needed, modest but respectable, and she wanted for nothing. Her upbringing echoed the stories spun by Hollywood, which lay in the foothills of her haven – she was the envy of her age, her school, her community, and soon, much more. She lacked obstacles, and every opportunity awaited her. She set the stage, the scene, the mood, she was the life of the party, and the aspiration of all. She was a leader, a bold pioneer (of what, we cannot tell), and loud for all the world to hear – and they all followed. Every word. Every picture. Every carefully framed moment. Every curated thought, recycled, repacked, rebranded, and repainted as something new. She was incredibly important, she thought, and without fault, she knew (aside from minor character flaws – caring too much, thinking too deeply, and her love of dairy) – or so she thought she knew.

One day, a girl from the Pacific Northwest went to find herself – went to refine herself – to show that she discovered what there was to discover in that vast and beautiful wild, and she went with her friends, who knew who she was, and what it was to be with her, and what a chance they possessed to be beside her when she discovered who she was, with them in the picture forever and ever. They packed their things, the important ones that they never left home without – shoes that made them taller, pants that made them smaller, shirts that made them fuller, and all manner of adornment for their face, nails, hair, and eyes. All in the name of preparedness – the essentials for several days where few people ever venture. They also took their connection to each other, to the outside world, and themselves – and finally, a means of keeping it alive. After all, it glowed in the night, woke them in the morn, and offered every assurance, reinforcement, wisdom, humor, and warmth that could be afforded.

One afternoon, a group of girls from the Pacific Northwest arrived at a little lake in Washington State, and set up camp, as was the custom, since the wild became a summer tutor to our young. They broke gluten-free bread together, and went on a hike around the water’s edge for a quarter mile or so, stopping every few hundred feet for a photo of themselves in the vast expanse. They roughed it back to camp for a rose and a fire from 2 hour logs. They bundled in sweaters for a cozy feel, and authentic wilderness adventure. Despite their best intentions, they mistepped in one crucial tributary – While they had themselves and each other, by some miscalculation or poorly planned detail they had no means of contacting the outside world. They found themselves in the proverbial darkness, which the literal darkness overhead surely mirrored. With no one to praise their exploits, to ask questions of their wisdom gained, to fawn over the nuances of their adventure, they quietly catalogued it all, anticipating a delicious recap when they returned to civilization, and drifted wistfully off to sleep.

One night, a girl from the Pacific Northwest awoke to the silence, terrified that there was nothing to be heard. Her fears contorted in the darkness, full and encroaching, as she discovered that there was nothing to be seen. She opened her yellow tent, which she had filmed setting up, knowing that others would be fascinated at her struggle, delighted at her triumph – and the edges of her anxiety softened. The darkness, the silence was only manufactured, controlled by the cover over head, the stoppers in her ears. A full moon greeted her, or nearly full (there was no way to be certain) and she greeted it back with a “click.” A bird praised her in the night, a creature scurried about the forest floor to announce her arrival, and the water beckoned her, an old friend from much earlier that day. She did the night a favor, and graced it with her presence, complete in knowing her for a moment that evening. She followed the owl. The creature. The water. Her own friends fast asleep, full of experience, and desires, and want, and everything they couldn’t have, would never be, could never appreciate or understand – best they sleep for a while, lest all their hours fill with pity and self-loathing.

When the moon was at its zenith, the girl from the Pacific Northwest reached an isolated shore, a stretch of lake that perhaps no human had actually stepped foot alongside before. She documented the discovery with a “click” perhaps too soon. In the brush along the water, amidst flowers that almost glowed in the moonlight, a little boat rocked back and forth with a single oar. Someone had tried to conceal it, perhaps long ago. The plants had grown around it, and the shore had swallowed part of the vessel. Naturally, with no one else around, after she had called out a crisp, “Hello?” to no quick and earnest reply, she boarded the craft. A picture here was a story, a discovery all her own, a marvel to those left sleeping, and even more so to those left back home, to those to whom she had not spoken in many, many years, but kept up with daily – ever in her thought and judgement. With one boot in, and then the other, with an adjustment of her hat, a straightening of her necklace, and bracelets, a tug of blouse, she was ready. But with the anchor of her self satisfaction descending, the boat’s mooring slipped loose.

Once, very late at night, a girl from the Pacific Northwest set sail, but by no intention of her own. At first, she accepted the voyage as an unexpected opportunity. The views, the setting, the scene – all perfect, all unique, and she at the epicenter of this grand orchestration. She made good use of her time and talents. This collection, this documentation, would be highly praised, adored, and earn her love for a long time to come. As she drifted off, and as her means to capture the moment dwindled, she set about returning to the shore, but with her first attempt to grab the oar, it slipped into the water completely, and sank down, and down. She watched it go, and cursed the night, the oar, the boat – but never herself. This was her first time on such an excursion, and certainly these mishaps were the unknown world working against her. She floated for a while, under half a moon, and she pondered whether it changed appearance due to its orientation in the night sky, or by some trick of the atmosphere, or if this was simply the way of things this far into the wild. After a moment’s rest and recovery, she rolled up her expensive sleeve, and began to paddle with one hand, documenting with the other (this was another story, a celebration of her ingenuity to cherish, always, for everyone). She tired quickly, making little progress. Indeed, she floated in the opposite direction, as if pulled by someone unseen force. She waited, content with the fact that she must approach the far shore, and by foot, a simpler, if longer journey, might be taken.

One early morning, in the Pacific Northwest, a girl from somewhere I forget, with some name, she must have had a name, drifted under a sliver of moon on a cold mirror lake. Surely that was the way of it – the moon changed each night, its shape along its path. She was certain now that she had read this in a book many many moons ago, before everyone knew her name, before people gave her gifts for being her, before she was crowned, before everyone wanted to be her. The moon changed before her eyes, dwindling, till it was nothing, until it never was, and there was darkness. Then, the current that pulled her made its source known. The wind did not blow her, nor did the sea pull her home. She floated toward a dark cave, and at its mouth the water turned frothy and black. She meant to frame the moment, but there was insufficient light, and insufficient time, and insufficient everything. Before she considered trying to paddle again, before she thought about using one of the seats as an oar, or swimming to the shore in the distance, the mouth swallowed her whole, and it didn’t think about what it had done, or regret not savoring the moment, or consider what it learned in the act, or solicit for praise – it only knew what it was, and it only knew what it wanted.

Once, there was a girl from the Pacific Northwest, who might have had a name, who might have had friends, and done some things, and for whom everything came easily. She led where few would dare to follow, and when she finally came out of a hole in the mountain, when she discovered the way back out of the narrow twists and turns, half drowned, half blind, half deaf, and half of what she was, she crawled back into a little boat on the far side of the shore, that waited for her in the brush. She boarded it, impulsively, not knowing where it would lead, not knowing how to pilot its course, and she watched. She reached out to those in the distance. Faint illusions, under a waning and waxing moon. Drifting. Guiding wisps of light across the water. And there she drifts still – waiting for new passengers, waiting to fulfill her terrible purpose, waiting for others to join her, in that yawning mouth of darkness, forever.