Page 46 - Contrast2016

CONTRAST - 44

BEING

BY EMMA RICHARD

greensboro, vermont. 20 J3.

I can still see the lake, sometimes, if I tilt my head back and stare at the sky on
a cloudless day.

I can envision it anywhere; feel its presence, hear the comfort of the waves
against the rocks.

It's clear, all the way to the bottom, with minnows that nibble your toes in
a friendly kind of way. Sometimes I would take out a kayak into the middle of
the lake and lay back, facing the sky, listening to the sound of the water lapping
against the plastic. On Friday nights, one of the big, expensive looking houses at
the end of the lake would play classical music out of huge speakers, and the sound
would carry almost across the big body of water. I'd paddle across to watch the
sun fade behind the treeline, feeling my breath pass between cracked lips and
hearing the calls of the night collide with the music. I was
surrounded by such serenity while I was there, such simple beauty, that even my
anxious heart and fluttering hands calmed themselves.

But the water was cold. It didn't much lend itself to swimming, except in one
spot; Bathtub Rocks. Three enormous, bleached-white rocks, forming a quiet, nat-
ural little bathtub. The water there was warmer than everywhere else, since it was
collected and didn't often flow out of the formation.

More often than not, I'd just sit out in front of the dock and stare at the water.
My eyes were tired from years of focusing on textbooks and cars,
florescent lights and concrete roads. My mind was weary from contemplating the
reasons of why my parents divorced, why my high school boyfriend and I had
broken up, why the world seemed so very against me in these moments. I was tired
from quieting the noise in my mind. I was aged, somehow, from the past year. But
here, beside the lake, my legs folded against my sunburnt chest; here, I could just
be.

***

Robin Hardy was a mother of two rowdy boys and wife of an even rowdier one,
Billy Hardy. He was my father's best friend, and they looked after me like I was
their own. She made the best spaghetti and meatballs I'd had in my life, thanks
to her very Italian mother, Mrs. Bizzini. Chris and Robert were her two boys, and
I thought of them both like brothers. I stayed with them in the little lake town of
Greensboro, Vermont, for almost a month. I worked at an art
gallery where my father's ceramics were on display and I could run my hands over
the fine fabrics of the handmade scarves in the window. I was surrounded by paint-
ings and sculptures and quiet people that milled about innocently, staring at the
work and searching for meaning.

I was there to learn how to be with myself again.
I didn't like the paleness of my skin or the darkness of my hair, so I sat in the
sun and tried to change that. I didn't like how chattering I could be, so I glued my
lips with a smile and kept all my busy thoughts in my head.
But I had stopped snapping rubber bands against my wrists, and I no longer felt
the inclination to watch what I ate.