Pretty Perfect

I’m up at Torch Lake for Memorial Day weekend at my Sisters place. She and Bob have a really nice setup out here. There are three cottages on the property. One three bedroom, a two bedroom and a single bedroom which allows any of their invited guests plenty of privacy if needed. I’m sitting out on the dock overlooking this amazing body of water. You should really look it up on the web. It’s right up there with the best of them.

The water is cold as hell so I can’t really get in. I tried to put my feet in earlier and almost had a coronary. The clouds are starting to roll in and it’s blocking, what was, a wonderful warmth given off by the sun that was sort of hypnotizing. I was the only one out here for quite a while but a group of six people split evenly among children and adults just came down to look at the water. It always amazes me when kids just walk into the water, no matter how cold it is, and act as if they’re in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Adults, on the other hand, are barely able to put a toe in without freaking out completely.

I’m sitting out at the end of the dock in a little beach chair I took out of the shed just looking out across the lake. I have the IPOD in and it’s playing random songs in no particular order. It’s pretty cool how sometimes things just fall into place. It’s so peaceful right now, the water is hardly moving. It’s incredibly quiet and calm and Rod Stewart’s version of “Country Comfort” just started to play in my ears. It just fits.

There’s a guy on a one man Kayak standing straight up about one hundred yards away from me. He’s got a paddle that’s barely touching the water. He seems to hardly be moving. As he gets closer I wonder if he’s feeling what I’m feeling right now. I just yelled out to him, “Pretty perfect huh?” he responded with, “It doesn’t get any better.” I think he gets it. As he gets even closer I notice that he’s not on a kayak at all, it’s a surfboard. He’s just floating. Pretty perfect.

These are the moments, however fleeting, that you need to take stock of. It’s literally no more than 30 seconds in length. It’s that one flash in time where everything falls into place. It’s important that you take a picture of it in your mind and put it away to use at a later date. I’ve got about 10 or so stored up and they all involve being near the water. I don’t know if when I find myself in that certain moment I lose one I had in my past, I hope not. They happen so seldom but it’s such an amazing feeling that I really want to save them all for as long as I can.