LAGOON AND LAKE

The land there was once marshy-swamp-bog land. A man wanted to convert it into a European type of village, and also something resembling the Floridian intercostals waterways. It was in the late 1970’s when they started digging pathways through what dirt and water was there. They used what they dug up with what I suppose were large machines, to build the land sturdy enough that roads and houses could go there. It still officially being a sort of swamp, a lagoon in fact, - there could not be basements as such, - but you could build up and up. In the coming years and decades the scene developed. A great series of asphalt and dirt roads, a marina, - a few marinas in fact, - a hotel, restaurants, townhouses, larger homes. In the lagoon the boat slips keep their vessels that bob and wait for a driver and the joyful passengers. Then,- they drive through the waterways and depending on how far in your abode, your dwelling is set,- it takes five, ten, or fifteen minutes to reach the larger waterway that proceeds out to the lake. Once there, - the sun usually glistens, the water is warm and the beaches that surround the area are sandy. 

Like other places in Southern Ontario, it is met with the seasons. But that is the beauty of it in fact. All the same area, like a person, but with different moods and nuances. The storms that come over and bring snow to pile atop canals full of ice. It is a large storm then, - say in the latest moment of afternoon, - and it’s time to go inside for sure, or shovel a walkway quietly enough, and within the safety of the front door and its soft yellow electrical light nearby. Or autumnal winds bringing the colorful leaves down and onto the surrounding streets and grounds. People have pumpkins, wreaths, and there is an old man walking across a field that sits up by a coffee shop. He wears denim pants and a checkered plaid shirt that keeps him for the most part from the wind and a certain bite of something like early frost that waits then in the morning air. And of course springtime,- its rain soaked day,- and we try to remember what will bloom, so far from July’s bountiful crop and flower, tree and shrub, we are. 

But, - for the moment, there is the easy summer way. People ride some old style bikes down a long stretch of pathway near the lake. Looking outwards the clouds mix with the blue, with the sun, with the water itself in the far and far distance. Those clouds watch the lake,- friendly phantoms, sometimes still, other times moving. Cricket song is strong, like a reliable and constant background band. Inside the cottages and houses grand and small are collections of books, records, old river stones, and other soulful artifacts of years gone past. In the lagoon the sunfish swim as do the catfish and bass, the pike and other. Some seaweed rises to the top and as a water spider goes past and a turtle quietly breaks through the liquid top, rays of sun come down and get filtered by branches from trees that live in the surrounding yards. Inside the water the rustle of a fish or other creature makes movement in plants and sends bubbles, ripples, shaded shapes and mysteries around and in the water there.

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