Only This and Nothing More

It is mid-afternoon on Loon Lake in Rangeley, Maine, on a hot summer day.

I lift my head ever so gently from the float’s pillow and see the sunlight shimmering on the slow moving waves coming across the lake in front of me. I close my eyes dreamily and reopen. The green of the pine trees lining the lake is vivid; the bright blue of the sky, brilliant with white/gray cumulous clouds ever so slowly moving east.

Eight loons – yes, eight, something unheard of – glide together in a pack not far from where I float. They’ve been near our dock and our end of the lake all day. I wonder why. What about today has drawn them so peacefully to this area and made them linger here so long?

It’s the day. It’s the time, the place.

I am relaxed with a depth I almost never experience. The beauty, the sun’s shimmer and warmth, the calm, nature, quiet – I am immensely grateful for right here, right now, needing only this and nothing more.

Photo: Loon Lake, Rangeley, Maine