The First Swim of Summer

I live a few miles from a lake that I've swum in every summer since childhood. This year, the beach didn't open until June. By the first warm Sunday, I was itching to get in.

I went early, at seven, when the water was perfectly flat and mist was coming off the surface. There were only two other people there: an old man in a swim cap and a woman with a golden retriever.

The water was cold enough to take my breath away. I swam out to the old wooden float, the same one I used to dive off when I was ten, and climbed up and lay on my back. The sun came up over the trees. A loon called from across the lake. The old man in the swim cap paddled past slowly and said, "Good morning. Isn't it something?"

It was something. I floated there for an hour. I've gone back every morning since.