This is Summer

Farley and I are at Hileman Landing, swimming in our favorite spot. The mercury is rising the closest to 90˚F it has been this year. I am grateful for the sounds of summer: the bullfrog, the mourning dove, the song sparrows. The water feels warm and cool at the same time—the cold spots surprise and the warms spots caress. The heat of the sun soothes my shoulders as I stand up on the rocky bottom and listen.

I stand in the water of the Willamette River’s oxbow listening to these sounds and saying aloud, “This is summer, this is summer,” as if to invite it to stay with me long enough to make the coming winter bearable. The warm water reminds me of summers past. As I speak my mantra I am aware that in my years in the South, this was spring. Summer was something else entirely.

The warm spots remind me of the Tchefuncta River and the swims that helped the eternal summers to be bearable in Louisiana. In my mind’s eye I once again see Brown Thrashers poking around at my mother’s, beneath the lanky pine tree forest that was her yard. The Cardinals and Blue Jays provide splashes of color at her feeders.

What we called “Lake” Emfred is actually a bayou, branched off the Tchefuncta's  languid main channel. There are two docks next to the boat ramp, one high and one low. The high one on the left is where I would sit to watch for snakes and turtles in the black water in winter, and jump in cannonball style to cool off in summer. Across the bayou the cypress swamp gives the appearance of an island but with little solid ground between the many “knees.” You could pole a pirogue through there to the river easier than finding footing for a hike. Looking to the right of the dock, the bayou has better access to the larger waterway, still through a dark and tangled swamp, an area I loved exploring by canoe.

The three days per summer that I get to be in the water at Hileman take me back to that place of sense memory and I relish it. Most of my Oregonian friends would never swim here, since the bottom is muddy in places and the water is not crystal clear. Most lakes here are translucent and deep and quite cold. After our swim, Farley and I hike out to where the car is parked and meet a family heading in with swimsuits and fishing poles. They ask if they are going the right way to the swimming hole and I reassure them about their direction. They ask how’s the water, and I say great, adding a caveat, “But I’m from Louisiana, so my standards are not high!” We laugh and walk on.