My husband and I have a mattress-size inflatable raft we use to float on the lake that is our backyard. We can shove off the grassy bank onto the three-acre lake and bask in the sun for a lazy hour or two, like soft-shell turtles on a floating log. Far enough from the house to not hear the phone ring, beyond the wifi’s reach, we are a liquid world away from the yard that needs mowing, away from dirty dishes, home repairs, and never-ending laundry. Still and quiet, we float suspended within nature, immersed in it, apart from human influence.
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As you float on the lake in late summer—between a wooded hillside and a field of hay, half-asleep in the sunshine—you listen. Eyes clamped shut against the bright sun, you feel as though you are hovering, and you listen to the constant crescendo of the katydid's callings, the buzz of passing flies, the far-off roar of a passing plane. These sounds sing of the end of summer, of turning leaves and fading fields, lush evenings wrapped in fog. This Indian summer insect song escalates from ground level, echoes out from the hillside above our heads, swells from the tucks under rocks on cliff faces, and from perches on lichened tree bark…
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