Fishing on Little Sebago Lake

He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul’s estate.” Thoreau, Journal








My husband Rollie says that when he is fishing, he never feels as though he should be doing something else. Fishing allows him a few hours of peace and quiet, when he is able to step outside of himself and his responsibilities and just be.



But it’s not just the change of pace. He says it’s the sensory experiences too. He likes being out on the lake when the light fades and the mists rise from the water to soften the shoreline in the distance. He likes the silent ripple of the water as a loon surfaces nearby. And then there’s the act of casting the line itself.



He also likes the mental challenge of figuring out where the fish are and under what conditions they will take the bait. He likes the thrill of feeling the pull of the fish on the line and the challenge of getting it over the side of the boat before it lets go. And then, of course, there’s the exhilaration of racing back to shore in the boat at the end of the evening. It really doesn’t matter much, he says, whether he catches any fish at all. In fact, he releases most of his catch.

Kayaking on Little Sebago Lake

A few years ago, I bought a pair of bright orange 1-person kayaks as a birthday present to myself. The opening in my kayak is large enough to carry a medium sized dog as a passenger, and on hot days like today, my old dog Oliver and I like to go kayaking on our end of Little Sebago Lake.




Oliver and I can glide through the water swiftly, but not fast enough to wreck my hair do. Once I tipped us over in deep water and wasn’t able to turn the kayak right again in the deep water. Oliver and I had to swim back to shore. We both wear life jackets.



A good kayaking excursion is a close circuit of the shoreline, including the coves that are not visible from the middle of the lake. It is not unusual to spot ducks, loons, cormorants, and eagles. We see many turtles, and once, a pair of muskrats. I’m lucky enough to live on the water, so I like to find a way to engage with the lake as well as the woods. The kayak is the perfect watercraft for me—no engine, no registration needed, and I can practically lift the boat in and out of the water with one hand. Don’t even get me started on motor boats (we have two). I’ll blog about that issue when Rollie gets here to put them in the water.

Changes

One of the things I love about my time in Maine is that I get a chance to reconnect with friends with whom I grew up and went to school when I lived in Maine all the time. Last week, I drove with two high school girlfriends to visit at third friend at his home on Snow Pond, near where we all grew up. In the car, I did some math. WE HAVE BEEN OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL FOR MORE THAN FORTY YEARS!




A lot had changed in forty years. Over lunch (lobster rolls, sweet potato chips, hummus and a good bottle of pinot noir), we spoke of marriages, divorces, children and grandchildren. There was the usual litany of physical ailments—knee replacements, failed thyroids, arthritis, cancer. So many changes.



After dessert, we took a boat ride and got caught in a sudden rain shower. We stopped the boat, pulled the canvas over our heads to wait out the rain, and told stories and laughed as we remembered people and events from a long time ago. We used old nicknames—Malsie for me, or maybe Malsey, nobody ever wrote it down.

I did some more math. WE HAVE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY!

When the rain stopped, we threw back the canvas and continued our boat ride. We spotted a bald eagle high in a pine tree, fanning its wings to dry in the sun. A loon popped up in the water beside us. We told more stories. We laughed some more. Old friends with a shared history.

Note to self: Some things never change.

Clean water

I come to Maine every year to be by the water. All summer I sit on my deck beside the clean freshwater lake, and when I need an “ocean fix,” it is a short drive to the nearby coastal village of Freeport. I don’t take for granted that I can enjoy the water, but I do take for granted that the water will always be here. Or at least I did until this summer.


I have been watching the horrific television news images of the devastation to the Gulf coast caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. I watch interviews with the stunned Gulf shore residents trying to clean the brown, sticky oil from their once pristine beaches; and with the heartbroken shrimpers whose livelihood has been destroyed almost overnight. The wildlife images get to me especially—the oil soaked pelicans, the fish washed ashore, dying on the sand. Even if some of the animals can be saved, where will they live? Their habitat has been destroyed.

A few weeks ago, the head of BP in a news conference said that no one more than he wanted to get the problem solved so he could “get his life back to normal.” See how quickly he made a global disaster all about himself?

Experts predict that it will take more than 60 years to clean up the spill. I wish I could help. Meanwhile, what am I doing to help clean up the oil spill? NOTHING. See how quickly I can make a global disaster all about me?