Little Toy Boats

"It really does feel like a maze. I don't know where I'm going."

'You don't know where you're going? Well, what are you leaving?'

"What?"

'If you're going somewhere, you have to be leaving something behind.'

True story.

Today I walked down to the lake from my house. The air wasn't necessarily chilly, but the wind felt nice across my skin. I pulled on a white sweater over my green tee and crossed my arms, closing my eyes to fully soak up the smell of grass and moisture. The sky was grey and made things look colder than they were. It was funny to walk down Cameron, simply because I hadn't done it in so long. The path to the lake isn't until the end of the road, where it becomes a cul-de-sac. I passed the Codd house, where a bunch of Pete's friends were playing basketball in his driveway. I still got the same anxious feeling when I passed them as I did when I was in middle school, when they used to shout at us for using "their" property to get to the water. Today they didn't pay me any mind; I was of no consequence to their game. I jumped the ditch and pushed past the undergrowth, with long weeds encircling me and waving gently overhead, creating a tunnel of flora and fauna crowned with seasonal marigold flowers. Though my walk had been quiet, the field was alive with the buzzing and croaking of all sorts of amphibians and other small creatures, none of which I saw. The trail branched off to the left, but I followed it straight to the little bank where one could push off a boat, if they wanted. My brother usually goes fishing there with his friends, so there was a blue tarp off to the side and the ground was littered with old Diet Coke and Gatorade bottles underneath it. I paused for a moment under a small tree, already yellow and brown, where my lips had met love in the early months of the year. I continued to the water's edge. It rippled in, barely moving, and was a pearlescent sheen of reflection. Long-dead trees stood stark against the apathetic clouds, and the opposite shore was still green and thick with trees and the occasional dock. Someone was playing music a long ways away. I couldn't help but stand and remember, and think, and let emotion wash sluggishly over me like the water on the pebbles beneath my feet. I stood there a long, long time. The wind tugged at my hair, loose around my shoulders, and it smelt of intangible things that I could no longer touch. I picked up a few rocks and skipped them, hard, until I ran out and couldn't find any more smooth edged ones. Then I turned back, pausing this time by a bump in the way, where I had sat and listened to a very different kind of music, on a very different sort of day, when the sunlight has cascaded through the foliage and danced over the waves and a different sort of scent was filling my senses, warm and inviting, spicy and alive. I was tempted to sit on it again, but decided against it for the sake of time. Real life was still waiting outside of that place and was calling me back, back to the present, back to where I didn't want to be. But I went, not because I wanted to, but because I knew it was right. And that's the kicker— what you want isn't always what's right, and what you don't want usually is. I hoped one day the two would merge; this, I decided, takes hard work and probably a miracle from God. God, with whom I'm grappling. God, who is silent. God, who I am waiting on. God, who is real and who loves me beyond my own comprehension. Yeah. God.

What's it going to take to turn this ship around?

It's been a long while since it started going down,

But a new breeze shakes the sail,

Though the wind brings rain, and sleet, and hail,

And if the fire could intensify

This wood's not proofed, but by-and-by,

Goodbye, this time we're going to try...

What's it going to take to turn this ship around?