Uncurling

This afternoon, I walked around Pretty Colour Lake with my brother, who had come to town to run a ten-mile race this morning. Because the day was cool, the trails weren't crowded at all. The wind had died down, and the water was that brilliant green-blue colour that it can be on spring afternoons. When we reached Dead Man's point, where reefs stretch out into the lake, we sat on a bench in the sun for a few minutes.

I've come to this lake hundreds, no thousands, of times in my life: with my family, with my friends, with my students. I can remember swimming in the lake as a teenager with my friend Outdoor Girl, collecting bright leaves at this lake with Picnic Family when I was a child, coming here on class picnics with Urban Sophisticate when she was a child, playing here with my own kids when they were little, walking around the lake five years ago with Artist Friend. I come here often for walks with my husband or my parents.

I stepped down to the water's edge to take a photo, and when I looked down, I realized that I had almost stepped on a snake. It was a common water snake, long and fat, with mottled skin. I've had so many snake dreams during the last few weeks that I felt startled by the sight of a real snake, the first one I've seen since last summer. The snake gave me little chance for contemplation. It uncurled and slithered into the water, sliding easily into all that green-blue.