We recently returned from the north. The docks there are unique, built of big pine logs for some reason, and extremely sturdy. They linger all year, unlike southern docks which roll out on classy wheels to be stranded on shorelines, littering them like giant metal creatures.
My first dock was lovingly created by my godfather and his dad. Heavy metal pipes, wooden decking, were painstakingly installed each spring, and painfully removed in the too cold water of each fall. My mother insisting the dock needed to stay in until the high holy days of MEA were enjoyed each fall in October.
The adjustments for that dock were epic as our shoreline was steep and the bottom of the lake was littered with rocks of every shape and size. If I had known Swedish I am sure my tender ears were hearing swearing, in Swedish as the adjustments to the dock were made.
Our current dock rolls in, and rolls out. Very little adjustment needed, but toned muscles required to roll and then wedge it into the one place where it will perch successfully for the summer. And once the dock is in, we are drawn to it. To watch the sun rise and set. To lay on tummies and read as the breeze drifts over us. We bask in high summer sun, and dry our water soaked suits, and bodies. The first cup of coffee is always best on a dock, and the evening glass of wine gleams in the back light of sunset.
A dock suspends us, over water that baptizes us. Away from our land locked lives, dreaming is possible and new ideas and plans are hatched. A dock is a little country, that the dock owner rules. Good lake manners demand that you don’t enter another’s country without asking. The wallpaper of light that makes the room the dock is in, can’t be bought in any store. It is a priceless place, suspended over a lake we don’t own.
I hiked completely around a lake this last week just near our BWCA. Hiking, I saw not another person the whole way around. Not in the lake, not around the lake, not even over the lake.
It was whole. No dock, no boat, no people. It is awe inspiring to see the lake as a living organism whole unto itself. I reflected on how lucky we are for our bounty of lakes, how grateful I am for those who early on began the process of protecting at least some of our lakes as pristine and how blessed I feel to have had a parent and grandparents who took the time to lead me to a lake: Where I learned to fish, swim, ski, hike, canoe, kayak, boat, load a trailer, bird and ultimately to be humbled by the majesty around me.
Wooden docks are best, warming gently even in the late light of fall. Watch out for slivers, keep your voices down if it’s after dark or early in the morning, jump off it from the sauna. Lay on your stomach when the lake stills and peer over the edge so you can see all the way to the bottom. Watch the fish swish by, and waterbugs twirl on top of the water. It’s the best seat in the house.
Kris Potter lives in Minneapolis and on Lake Sylvia. In Minneapolis she works as an Early Childhood Educator. She and her family have had a cabin on Lake Sylvia for more than 40 years.