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Reflections on Being Here for First Light

The rare occasion of a summer cold pretty well removed my motivation for an early rise-n-drive to the shoreline and a coastal dawn this week. Thought it would be best to sit this one out at home. The sun does rise here as well.

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It’s almost sunrise time, and I’m lurking behind the cattails and lily pads along the basalt-riddled shore of Bantam Lake’s south bay where the roadway comes close to the water. I don’t think the basalt rock is natural to this place. My guess is that it was placed here as ballast material for the road as it passes between the lake and No Man’s Land Swamp, but it makes for some tricky footing on the dewy, slick ground. From my perspective, the sun will be lifting from behind Apple Hill on the east shore of the lake, so my first look across at the rising sun will be delayed several moments past the posted time. The only clouds to be found in the entire sky are to the east — creamy and scattered, pale ushers of first light.

I’m happy to be home this morning in this place of familiar features that have familiar names, features I’ve come to know intimately over 16 springs and summers, and yet have never, ever tired of. I know the roadways and hiking trails by foot and heart, and the lake and its shoreline by the seat of my kayak. I know when to start looking for the annual algae bloom, and exactly when the local waterskiing club will start the twice-weekly rehearsals for their annual ski show. And because of knowing these things, I come to know an ever deepening sense of home. When I think of the places and circumstances in which I have lived over these 70 years, there has been no home I’ve known more profoundly than here in the sweet landed goodness that surrounds Bantam Lake in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

Such lightness tends to arrive on the heels of great and dark experience. It arrives out of necessity and at the behest of grace, an essence of the divine that is said to be always present, yet can be maddeningly elusive to the distracted human.

When I first became a citizen of this place, I was in a state of shock, yet through the miraculous ways of denial, had found a way to walk upright. I used a term then, one I feared may have been a tad hyperbolic, but which has stood up shockingly well over time: emotional crucifixion. I would describe it as something just shy of a dark night of the soul, but more severe than a simple rough spell. Life, one could say, had come undone, and not one domain of it had been left untouched. All that was left was to begin again.

A place can teach us and offer comfort, shield and protect us, become the stage for miracles, but maybe most of all, it becomes our place of returning from wondrous journeys. An entire pilgrimage is only truly felt in the turn for home, the great receiver of all noble experience. The idea of having a home became most truly known to me only when I arrived back here after my first pilgrimage to Spain, and it dawned on me that this had been my real destination from the very first steps into the Pyrenees Mountains of France. Santiago de Compostela and the Atlantic coast of Spain were but turning points. Everything had been pointing to here — a small town, a simple home, verdant woods, and a lake into which I could continue to pour myself.

The sun did rise here on this perfect summer morning in early July. It rose fat and yellow through the pale clouds over Apple Hill, ill defined yet undeniable, a wonderful metaphor for many days of late. It reflected a warm golden orange against the farthest treetops of the swamp, and the treetops of the Bantam River as it bends away from the lake to join a larger river and then to the sea. It wasn’t long before the day’s white light was burnishing the lake’s surface like it possessed the sun — because it is summer. Because it is summer, now ten summers since my return.

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There is a trend among those who purchase land along the lake’s shoreline: the teardown. The rickety, family camp style of cottage gets plowed over like a weed and carted off. I suppose the memories must linger for the property sellers. Most of these old places were 3^rd or 4^th generation summer-only homes built post-World War II. I mean, the sweet summer romances alone...

There is another trend I’ve noticed during my time here. The elegant year-round lake homes built to replace the old shacks are rarely used. Must be a statement of wealth to build new, then ignore what has been built. A kayak paddle along the east shore on a summer weekend reveals this to be true. The lovely, manicured properties are empty and still, their docks loaded with powerboats and jet skis. They are sterile exhibits. The humble family camps are beehives.

My own time here falls somewhere in the middle of all this. Though my human structure was rickety, damaged, and a bit run down as I arrived, it seems life offered a compromise in the way of a steady rebuilding. Of course, it remains a work in progress, but I can see more clearly the ways I’ve always been returned here, and how place and identity can blend into one beautiful lived experience. It was here that life opened at last. The sun does rise.

Peace,

Stephen

Bantam River, morning golden hour.