The Getaway
Beside the deep end of our pond, where the stacked rows of concrete pavers line a narrow overflow and the tangled roots of a small stand of locusts wrap the tunnels of a den of muskrats, a few feet of weathered wooden planks extend onto the water, just beyond the edge. Perhaps we are wrong to call it a dock, for neither a boat, nor cargo, nor passengers arrive here.
Nothing is loaded.
And no one ever leaves.
Yet, often I find myself here, waiting—for something.
Passing time on its 23 faded boards has become my favorite getaway.
The pond in spring green
On the first sunny day after winter, I spend the morning here, and wait as tentative turtles of every size emerge, one by one, to bask on a log on the opposite shore. Like them, I seek the warmth of the sun, and lay motionless, under an April sky bursting with bluebirds and apple blossoms.
Red Maple keys of early summer
I visit often in the summer, when the heavy, leafy cover of the surrounding woods and the density of our brick walls topped by their impenetrable metal roofs leaves me missing my contact with the outside world. The cell phone tower just a few miles away cannot seem to find me in the midst of it all. Yet on the dock, everything’s right here—four bars of service, the water yawning before me.
Snapping turtle surfacing
Last summer, I woke from a nap to the sound of swirls beneath me. Face down on the boards, peering with one eye through a crack to the water below, I watched a huge snapping turtle rise from the belly of the deep, and glide from under me to open water. I snapped a picture, and she was gone.
Each fall I look to the branches of the old ash in the pasture behind me, where my barred owl watched me once from behind as I scanned every branch to the front of me. I still remember her with a smile—our game of hide and seek, her victory. Instead, it’s filled with a large flock of cedar waxwings that gathers to gorge on the honeysuckle berries of bushes I’ve yet to remove. Yes, yes, I know--there's already a list for spring.
I walk away from an inbox full of last-minute shipping offers, midnight shopping hours, lines of traffic and cherry-cheeked Santas--to the dock.
My perfect getaway always takes me just where I need it to.
Contrail
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