The Lake Way Home
I took the lake way home on Thursday, after it snowed. My brain had been telling me lies all day, and I knew the cold and white would shut it up. I have been assured that come summer, the lakefront will be abuzz with music and crowds. But it's a haven to me right now. In the spareness of bare trees, in the quiet expanse of a park waiting for warmer days, my mind goes similarly still. Spellbound by the steel and pearl of winter, I feel nothing but the beauty of its soft, frozen palette. The right colors, I am learning, will mute the wrong sounds.
The lies are nothing new. Now and again throughout my life, they worm their way up from the depths of my depression where they only lay dormant--never dead. They find a toehold in my heart, lately made vulnerable by months of increasing social isolation. From there they launch an assault, climbing up my spine and dropping dread, heavy as lead, into my shoulders. A nameless, sourceless sadness I haven't asked for and don't deserve comes over me. Shimmering whispers become voices with form and cruel purpose, and then there is no refusing the message.
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The grounds south of Millennium Park were devoid of everyone except a trio of teenagers sheltering on the back side of an empty stage. They huddled close, and though I was curious, I limited myself to a single glance their way. They wore blankets and recent enough haircuts that I decided I didn't need to worry. I told myself they probably had more than just blankets to keep them warm, anyway.
More troubling were the geese, which blocked every path to the water. They had fanned out across the field and sidewalks, preening their feathers with a proprietary air. A few stretched their wings and honked. They're south for the winter, I realized. This twenty-degree Midwestern February is their tropical vacation. All the more reason to steer clear. These were not the same lazy, overgrown ducks tormenting dogs from the ponds of Whittier Narrows. These creatures could commit crimes.
The pathway that runs alongside the lake was vacant. No one else wanted the view, the fresh air, or the exercise badly enough to fight the wind--which was formidable. Wind that bit my fingertips every time I shed my gloves to take a photo. Wind that dared me to walk close to the water's edge and see if my luck held. Wind that blew every awful thought out of my head.
---
Some of my boyfriends have teased me, in varying degrees of kindness, about the lack of color in my life. About my white furniture, my strictly neutral bedding, the washed-out hues of my wardrobe. I take the ribbing passively; they wouldn't understand. Too much color is too much. It overloads my senses, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Brights can feel unpredictable, uncontained, aggressive. It is the legacy of my LSD usage, and one I accept gratefully, since along with that heightened sensitivity has come an enhanced awareness of the games color plays. I can be mesmerized by the simplest tableaus anytime and anywhere, natural or manmade. Differing shades of the same color--or differing colors in the same shade and intensity--will call out to me and I will stare, dumbstruck, at the way they have conspired to come together in that moment. Acid kicked open a new door in my brain, and behind it was a rainbow bigger than life itself. Time has closed the door to all but a narrow crack. What pours through that crack is beautiful--but loud.
Pale colors are a respite from all this noise. I can slip into their subtlety and feel safe. Muted, faded tones are where the volume is turned down low. And when the volume is turned down low, it's hard to hear the lies my brain tells me. Like:
You're too broken to be loved.
There are others, but that is the poison into which they all distill. COVID was the primary alembic. A confusing, messy breakup the secondary. And after a year and a half of little messaging to the contrary, I am all but defenseless to my lying brain's attack.
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I stayed at the lake as long as I could, as close to the edge as I felt comfortable. Lakes don't get angry. Lakes are indifferent. But in the turbulent, viridian water I thought I heard an accusation. You wanted this. You knew you wouldn't know a soul. You knew it would be hard, and take time. Far in the offing, baby blue sky teased, reminding me of sunnier times. I wasn't interested. Blue sky is an ex-boyfriend I would never take back.
The wind eventually battered me back from the water, westward into the park. Further inland, the spindly trees had as much to say as the slapping waves. They held up their snowy limbs in example. Be patient, they urged. Look at us. Look how long we must wait, every year. For the company of leaves. For the joy of birdsong. For the sweetness of spring.
This is a season of waiting, they said. This is a season of patience. Listen to the colors all around you, and let the quiet be enough for now.
I left before dusk could chill me beyond repair for the night. But the colors and the quiet stayed with me long past dark, and I decided I would take the lake way home again soon.
