This morning was my 20th lake swim of the year, not counting the few times I plunged in quickly and briefly over the winter. The water has been cold–a week or so of hard rain (which we needed) and before that, mornings when the air temperature was 6 or 7 Celsius. But the last few days have been sunny and the water is warming up a little. I don’t mind it being cold. I swim for about half an hour. But it’s nice to come out to sun, to stand for a few minutes wrapped in a towel, and remember all the years of light and rain and snow. The birds–kingfishers, mergansers with their young, eagles, the osprey we’d see many mornings, though not lately, swallows skimming the surface of the water, loons.
Last week I had the thought that I was the only one swimming in the lake that morning. No boats, a thin curl of smoke from a cabin on the other shore, no sound. But today John said he heard a big splash as someone dove in from one of the docks at the road end and then someone yelping in surprise. (When I said the water was warming up, I didn’t mean by much…) I liked the idea of being the only one. But this is the weekend that people will begin to come early to stake out a picnic table (there are 3) or a little area on the sand for the day. I swam this morning at 9 but soon it will be 8.
Swimming, this morning, I noticed that the Pacific ninebark was in bloom. Last week, just buds. Where it grows near the little creek, the one where the kingfishers wait on early summer mornings, crying as I enter the water, flying away like darts, where it grows near the little creek, bees are at work, dragonflies mate on the wing and then pause on the ninebark to complete the process. As I swam, a dragonfly was paused on the water and I gave it wide berth until I noticed it was trying to fly. It couldn’t. John tossed me a piece of bark to offer it as a liferaft and I held the bark aloft as I came briefly to shore to let it rest on a warm rock. Like the bee yesterday, rescued on a stick, like the butterfly in panic in the greenhouse when we returned. I open and close my hands as I swim, a kind of magic. See? Nothing. And now? Wings.
I am planning a quilt that will include all of this. Will include my arms in the water, reaching forward, the astonishing sky with clouds like salmon from which all the meat has been removed, long delicate bones spread wide in the sun. Watch them. Watch them open and dissipate, small drifts of white across the tent of blue. Watch the wings of the dragonfly dry in the sun. Planning the textile, blue cottons, and prints, as I have done so many times, sharp needles threaded with fibres, everything gathered together with stitches.
There are moments in our lives which, threaded, give us heaven—noon, for instance, or all the single victoriesof gravity, or the kudzu vine,most delicate of manias,which has pressed its luckthis far this season.
Note: the lines of poetry are Jorie Graham’s, from “Over and Over Stitch”.
...Theresa Kishkan 
Love imagery and language, as usual. Also, from the poem, I was surprised to learn this week that kudzu is now being used as a way to describe the endless spread of tasks for digital workers today. I’ve yet to perfect the stationery rescue stick for use in the “bath” in the yard, how to keep it rooted as a single (but better than nothing) source of safety for those whose thirst takes a tragic turn. But it floats there and when I see a flutter on the surface from a window I rush outside and do my best.
We have water in various areas around our gardens and I always feel badly when I find a drowned bee. I have stones in the bowls and oyster shells but sometimes the bees drown anyway. It’s really the dragonfly season right now! They like to pause on the tall bamboo canes I use as support for lilies and sweet peas in pots on the upper deck. The world seen through a dragonfly wing…