THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon

I spent last week “up north” with my parents. While my husband, Peter, and my cat, Felix, stayed at home and played cat games, I drove up to my parents’ cabin four hours north.

The city was hot, but right now, even up north is hot. So I decided to go swimming.

I hadn’t been swimming in a long time. I walk in the woods every chance I get, but I don’t go in the water as often as I could. Sometimes it feels like a nuisance to get wet. Sometimes I get self-conscious putting on a bathing suit. Usually, I fret that the water will be too cold. I chicken out and take a walk instead.

But this last week was so warm that walking did not even sound tempting. So I put on the new brightly colored striped swimsuit I had bought used online (and had never worn), and I borrowed a beach towel from my mom, and I headed down the many steps from my parents’ cabin to the lakeshore.

I waded in slowly. The lake was much warmer than I remembered it being. I stood on the sandy bottom and attracted the attention of a school of sunfish. These sunnies were young and curious, and they were attracted to the bright-green-and-blue stripes of my swimsuit as well as my bright blue painted toenails. They came out from under the dock and surrounded me. They nibbled on my suit. They nibbled on my toes. One of them nibbled on my butt.

“Stop it!” I said and splashed them away.

They backed up for a moment, then came right back, still curious about this bright-colored new friend who had joined them in the shallow water.

“Pesky fish!” I shooed them away again. Still, it was good to know I’d won the Sunfish Seal of Approval. I dove in.

The first dive into a northern lake is always a shock. The top six inches of water on a hot day are several degrees warmer than the water below. But once I was fully wet, it was wonderful. I swam along the shoreline. There were tall reeds and lily pads. I checked out the cabins up and down the shore. The lake was quiet on this hot day in the middle of the week. A deer was eating tasty greens from the water’s edge. If I’d been so close to her on land, she would have run. Instead, she watched this peculiar water creature a little cautiously and continued to graze.

I found some water lilies that were blooming and decided to bring some back for my mom. I picked three and then swam home with one arm, trailing lilies (and a little seaweed) behind me. Then I left the lilies on the beach and just floated for a time. Floating in the warm sunshine, a cold finger of water from deeper down occasionally found its way up as I slowly spun around, looking at the tall pine trees and the scattered clouds and the reeds along the shoreline.

It’s good to be in a lake, I decided. It was worth getting over my trepidation, putting on my new, brightly colored suit and diving in. I realized what I’d always known but forgotten: how the water is calming yet fills me with a wonderful energy.

I brought the lilies home to my mom, and we put them in a vase. She said she’d never had a bouquet from the lake before. And the next day, I went out swimming with the sunnies again.

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