It was late April of 1975, and my nine-year-old legs carried me down to the lake to see if the ice was getting ready to go out yet. Limekiln Lake was still a frozen white mass as I turned the corner of the road and walked the hundred yards down the hill. It was that first spring day where you could just slip on a sweatshirt and stay out all day long.  My dog Mutt was happy to tight rope walk the top of the roadside snowbank all the way while I made scuff trails with my sneakers in the sand left behind by a long winter of snow plowing. 

Every so often, I turned to look up the road behind me to see what my scuffing design looked like.  At about the halfway point it looked like two snakes had slithered down the road. The glare from the thawing whiteness of the ice was making my eyes water as we approached the lake, and I had to put both my hands out beyond my baseball cap brim so that I could scan the far shores of the lake. 

It was then that I noticed the beach had appeared as if out of nowhere from a long winter’s game of hide and seek. I had not felt the sand of it between my toes for six months. As soon as my mind thought it, I was sitting on and old log pealing of my socks and shoes. Mutt was already digging at a half-buried stick that was frozen deeper down under the looser sand on top.

The first few steps on the sand almost made me lose my breath because it was cold enough to sting under my feet. I decided that if I just ran down the beach a way and then turned back, it might be better than lingering in just one location. Each step was like thousands of little tiny swords pecking at my toes and heals. Mutt had caught up with me and had a portion of the stick she was digging at clenched in her jaw, and we raced now faster down the beach. I had thought if I picked up my speed, my feet would not be on the ground very long and it might hurt less. But when I turned to run back, I felt a small tear run down my cheek. 

I sat on the log and pulled my feet up I cupped them into the palms of my hands, trying to change their color from blue to pink again. I pulled my sweatshirt over my head and wrapped it around both feet together until the burning pain went away. I sat there in the sun while Mutt tested the water with just a paw then also retreated to the log by my feet to watch the lake melt with me. 

The lake was now starting to come back to life after a long sleep. There were rumbling noises and groans and moans that were a perfect quiet growl that seemed to come from every direction all at once. The small bit of water exposed at the shoreline make a delicate wave action with the breeze. When I stopped breathing, I could hear it lap against the cold sands of the beach. 

I unwrapped my feet and brushed of the sand as best I could before I pulled my socks back on and laced my sneaks back up. The lake would only be this way for a short while and I went every day for the next week to visit to see the last of winter melt away.