Squam Stories: Into The Lake

This is the story of Saturday afternoon--part of it, that is--and how I fell into the lake. But that's not really the point of the story...

Every cabin has its own dock. This is mine. It doesn't really play a part in this story, but it's a pretty picture.

I ate dinner on that dock one night, and lunch the next day, sitting in the sun and reading my library book, which (oops) almost fell into the lake once. I knit on that dock with cabin mates. But Saturday afternoon, returning from a solitary (and perfectly great) tromp through the woods, I saw one of my cabin mates lying down on the dock. I wasn't sure if she was awake; she'd had a migraine earlier. I didn't want to disturb her. My cabin seemed otherwise deserted. The cabin next door, though--I could hear shrieks of laughter coming from their dock. It sounded like fun over there. I'd met one of the residents earlier, as I was setting out on my woods tromp. We talked for a bit. She was friendly. I'm friendly.

But groups...groups intimidate me. There, I admitted it. I didn't want to intrude. Maybe they wouldn't want company from the next cabin over. I turned back towards my own dock, but my cabin mate was still lying down, facing away; I really didn't want to disturb her. And it sounded like so much fun next door, too. So I went against all my normal instincts and walked over. Their dock was full of women, but they made room for me, too. Since I'd been hiking, I had no knitting, so I just sat with my water bottle, feet in the water, and enjoyed the sunshine and the company. I was still a little out of my comfort zone, but what the hey, I'd been out of my comfort zone since I'd left my own driveway, really. Soon another woman joined us, a very pregnant woman, and we joked about the dock handling all the weight. There had to be close to a dozen of us. About five minutes later....CRACK! Splash!

The dock collapsed. I went in up to mid thigh (I had to peel my jeans off later). We all got wet. Since nobody got hurt (and the pregnant woman was fine), it's a really funny story. Don't believe me? Look at this dock.

All the knitting was saved, and the embroidery projects with Sulky Solvy, too (yarn will dry; Sulky Solvy just...disappears). When I got home Sunday afternoon, it was fun to just drop into conversation, "I really need to shower, I haven't showered since yesterday after I fell into the lake." But the real story is that I was there at all, that I shut up that little voice that was saying, It will be easier just to go back to your cabin alone and instead listened to the one that said, But it sounds so fun over there.

It was. It was fun over there.

And that's the story of how I came to be on the dock that collapsed and plunged a bunch of women into the lake on Saturday afternoon.