As I look out the window of my house to see a cold and uninviting gray sky, with a wall of evergreen pines leading down to the shore of Oswego Lake, a sense of longing overcomes me. The lake tantalizes me, reaching out with her arms, begging me to go for a swim. I think back to the summer days, with the sun sizzling above me as I leap off the bow of my boat, arms pointed to the cloudless sky. I arch over, curved like a bottlenose dolphin breaching, before I effortlessly slide from sweltering air to refreshing water. This sensation unceremoniously startles me back to reality, back to being curled up underneath a blanket on a frigid October day, sipping watered-down hot chocolate that burns my tongue. The moment I step from the scratchy green grass in my yard to the cool smooth leather of my boat, I feel as though I am in a completely different universe. Out on the open water, with the wind caressing her fingers through my hair, white spray shooting up from underneath, I can relax. I look backwards at the wake cutting through an otherwise tranquil surface with the ease and fluidity of a hot knife through butter. The water is a cool blue, save for the orange buoys dotting the shoreline like freckles. I pull up to my favorite swimming hole and drop …show more content…
Once impeccably maintained, ivy has run rampant and swallow the large brick house in the middle. A gray stone bridge connecting the island to the shore, about twenty feet tall, sticks out like an eyesore. Last summer, I climbed up on the island with a group of friends, planning to jump off the bridge. After navigating our way through shrubbery as thick as the Amazon jungle, we reached the bridge just in time for the sunset. We sat down on the wooden rails just as the sun dipped below the wall of trees that surrounds the lake. The sun cast a brilliant glow of reds and oranges that reflected off the glassy water, making for a surreal moment in an incredible