A Moment on the Water

Last night, I wanted to go on a pontoon boat ride around Lake Martin. I tried to convince all the other staff members that it would be a glorious night for gliding on the water, listening to the motor hum as it carried us, barge-like through the murky, lapping waves. To me, being on a boat at night is sheer poetry. The stars are cast in their usual spots, and the occasional spotlight on someone's dock spreads out over the water until it can't reach any farther, and the water resumes its dark, absorbing color. Apparently they weren't in the mood for poetry.
I walked down to the water front, knowing someone was there because all the dock lights were blazing. There sat the camp ranger, waiting. I had asked him earlier that, if I could get up a group, could he take us for a ride after the kids' evening activities were done? Obliging guy; he said, "sure, if you can get a group together." I saw no one else but kept walking down the hill, my shoes sliding slightly on the gravel. My flashlight was waving sporadically as I strode down with determination.
I approached the dock, then boarded the boat. We sat for a minute in silence, as I looked expectantly at the path leading to the water front.
"I guess no one else is coming."
"We can't go for much of a ride," the ranger told me. "The motor surges after it hits a certain number of rpm's."
"Oh." I wondered if this meant he wasn't going to take me for a spin around the watery block. My fears were relieved when I head the engine burp a couple of times as he turned the key in the ignition, then felt it come to life. Backing up from the slip, we headed past the swimming area and the island that seems to inspire each new director to build something on it, but remains inhabited only by fireants and scrubby pines each year.
The sky was much darker than I had anticipated and we both commented that the stars were not very visible. A storm was expected sometime within the next 24 hours, and we wondered if cloud cover would keep us from seeing anything. We motored along at a rather sedate speed and chatted. I learned that Jason, the ranger, had been a missionary in Russia, near the Mongolian border for a year. He told me it was the most rewarding year of his life, but that it had been a difficult adjustment. I told him about my recent missionary experience in Mexico, then we fell silent.
I sat with my arms folded over the back of the seat and looked over the side. What I could see in the dark was moving water-water displaced by an object being propelled through it, then resuming its original fluid form. "That we were here already doesn't matter," I thought. Glancing up towards the sky, I discovered that the stars had come out from behind the clouds' skirts, peeking shyly at me. One even winked at me, or so it seemed till I figured out that the light was blinking regularly and was therefore a plane. That was okay-it had been a nice figment to possess for a moment, even if it was a little cliche'. The breeze lifted my curls and my hair, which had been wet from a shower, was now only damp.
Why does it matter to anyone but me? It doesn't. But for me, it was another ride on a lake I've visited since childhood. It was a moment on the water, and will be added to the sum total of my experience with deep depths. Experiences become fragmented and splintered; they unravel so that what I think are the important parts to remember become nothing but lint on my sleeve. But the splinters and fragments somehow form an aggregate memory, a composite memory that embodies an essence I failed to catch at first. That becomes the point. It was such a slight thing, the ride that the ranger gave me. He won't remember it, and it was certainly not the longest ride or best conversation or even prettiest night. But it was mine, for a brief time, and I will remember it.