There’s a place on the road where the road curves and the trees let go and after miles of houses and forest and rural roads inviting you to drive down them and see what’s there, Lake Wentworth is suddenly just there. Every time. I know it’s coming, I’ve driven it more times than I could count, in all seasons and weathers, and my chest still does the small lift and opening of a person spotting someone they love across a crowded room. The islands you can spot from the road, hovering in the middle with the mystery of places you see but do not know visit. The hills stacked behind them, green up close, and then going bluer the farther back they go. And the sky, which has a different mood every single day and never repeats itself out of politeness.
I did not see this coming, this love affair.
The truth is, bodies of water have never really been my thing. Until this summer, I hadn’t been on a boat other than a ferry or a cruise ship maybe ever. For my entire adult life, and most of my childhood, I lived in cities. We swam in water parks with slides or in public pools. Then, for the 20 years before moving here, I was always within an hour or so of some coast, but one of my most deeply held unpopular opinions is that I hate beach days. I'm perfectly happy to look at the sea, to hear the crash of waves breaking on the beach or rocks, to dine on a pier where the brine in the air matches the brine of the oysters on the plate. But to be on the beach? Feet in the sand? With salt drying on my skin? No thanks. So I knew I would never live on the beach, and even when I fell in love with the Lakes Region and decided I wanted to live here full time, I didn't buy on a lake. And not just because I couldn't afford it (but also).
So something that is a bit surprising to me now is how much I depend on the sight, sounds, and feeling of our lakes, ponds, and marshes. Water here is not one thing, which is the part I couldn’t have explained before feeling the many ways in which it shows up every day here.
I feel a little thrill in my soul every time I come around that corner and first glimpse Lake Wentworth. It matches the thrill I felt when I first drove past it, frozen solid, and marveled at the beauty and at the brave soul careening across it on some sort of wind propelled skimmer craft.
Lovell Lake is where a good friend has a camp. It’s where the kids and I go for a dip that never requires a plan, and it’s also where I go when something has hold of me, some hurt or fear I can’t get my arms around that day. I don’t always say much. My friend talks, and the lake does the other half. A calm body of water turns out to be a good listener, mostly because it doesn’t try to fix anything.
Winnipesaukee is a different animal. Winnipesaukee is speed and laughter and wind that pulls your hair across your face and takes the words out of your mouth before they reach the ear of whoever is driving the boat. You learn to say less. You learn to mean it with your face instead. And to appreciate how the same landscape can look different from day to day, sometimes moment to moment.
And then there’s the marsh that borders my land, the edge of it creating vernal pools that I get to claim stewardship of. The marsh is part of a watershed that I should probably know the name of, but don’t, and it ties to several streams and maybe a small river that cuts through neighbors properties. My part of it is mostly reeds, and pockets of water; the croak of frogs and the occasional sighting of an owl swooping in for a kill at dusk.
The dogs and I walk down most evenings. We’re making a path, though calling it that is aspirational. It might become a proper walkway someday; right now it’s a negotiation with overgrowth, a weaving under branches and around whatever has decided to grow in the way, until the ground goes soft and we arrive at the mud and the shallow pools. The frogs are loud down there. Loud enough that you stop noticing, and then notice again when something makes them pause. It’s a great spot for bird watching, for communing with oneself, and just generally for recognizing that sometimes a life made of small, quiet moments is just lovely.
I’ve thought about what I’d miss, if I were to suddenly move back to Boston or to some other city around the world. I don’t think it would be the water, itself, first. It would be the lift at the bend in the road. It would be the habit I picked up without noticing, of checking the sky before I check my phone. It would be the particular quiet of standing next to a lake with a friend who has the heart to leave a silence alone.
And the marsh, I think. The mud, the croak of it, the feeling that life is going on all around us in the half dark, whether or not anyone is there to see it. The sense that there is some magic down there, and that it has never once needed me to believe in it. That it preceded me, and will be there long after I’m gone for whomever comes next to discover.
The dogs weave ahead. The pools hold what’s left of the light.
Here’s to discovering what makes your heart lift.
🧭 Jennifer
Keys to the Lakes
