Clarity

Now that I am not living near the Lake, Spring looks different to me.  There's a clarity and calm of witnessing spring through the lake ice melt.  The waters are so crisp and clean and embody the word "renewal".  I miss that visual and feeling connection.  Sure, the leaves bursting forth on the trees and the tulips reaching towards the sky are enjoyable signs of Spring, but they do not bring the depth of the waters effect to me...

I know it is now Spring in Okoboji.  A month of the calm before the storm of summer...

The Unofficial Start to Summer

And what could this be?  A start to summer before spring has arrived?  As every true Okobojian knows, there is a certain eatery that embodies flip flops, sand, and sun.  Yes, friends, the Taco House is open.  Belly up to the table, unwrap the burrito, and layer on the sauce.  Sand and waves are just around the corner.

Echoes of the Past

As March slowly warms into spring, the shores around the lake will gradually come to life.  The uninhabited homes that waited patiently through the winter will begin to shake off the hibernation and breathe deep, waking breaths as the eager Okobojians return on nice weekends to prepare Summer's welcome.  It's an anticipatory month we await to see if we will be allowed a prolonged summer event, or merely glimpses of warmth between blasts of winter.  

I can't help but picture the scene one hundred years ago.  A smaller haven, with cabins in place of regal homes and roads that insisted on a slower pace of life.  An era before the use of "global economy" when the radio was still in infancy, planes were new (and deathly) wonders, and Titanic had yet to set sail.  An era before "world war" anything, and terrorism, at least in this corner of the world, was more related to an old ghost story than global movements.  One hundred years ago, we were truly on the cusp of the changes brought with the 20th Century (at the "Point of No Return" if you will), and it has certainly been a thrilling ride.  Yet, I can't help but wonder about the summer of 1911.  I can't help but cast a "good ole days" glance on the boater hats, parasols, and band music along the shores.  The scores of bathers and row boaters along the waters.  Picnic lunches easing into leisurely evening strolls under strings of new electric lights.  Steamships carrying passengers to and from the grand resorts.  

And at some point in the midst of all this nostalgia, although I know 1911 will never be my reality, I know that I can still find a place on Pillsbury Point, where I can look to the West and phase out all the modern elements dotting the shoreline, and I can see what my 1911 counterpart could see.  At that moment, time slips away, and the distance between the present and the past simply becomes the now.