I AM ONE WITH THE LAKE; THE LAKE IS ONE WITH ME

“I look at the lake like one does a lover. Longing to swallow it whole, lick my lips, bury its essence so deep within my bosom I can barely breathe any other name.”

When I was six years old, I stood on the dock at my grandparent’s lake and a murder of crows swooped close enough to graze my hair and I toppled into the water screaming. Luckily, the water was only maybe two or three feet deep and I knew how to swim since I was four years old. I was born in Long Prairie, Minnesota, on a small run-down farm in the middle of nowhere. My earliest memory is being two or three years old and sneaking away into the barn to play with the feral cats. I still have a scar on my lower right calf where one bit a chunk out of my leg. It never stopped me from playing with cats.

I want you to always believe that I live in the sky,
that forest fairies are real,
and there’s gold at the end of the rainbow.
I want your little hand to fit so small in mine,
your sweet little voice
to be the one that echoes in my memories.
I don’t want you to not need me anymore,
to think that you’re big enough to go at it alone.
Stay little, dear one—
I’ll always have a room for you in my sky castle.

At this little farm, my brother also walked with me to the wheat field in our backyard, told me he’d come back, and then left me there. I am not sure who found me, but I remember that was the first time I felt so terribly small and so terribly alone. I broke the head off his brontosaurus toy. He retaliated by peeing in my Barbie pool. During the hot and humid Minnesota summers, we swam in a hole in the ground with a tarp and a tractor tire to hold it down. It never stayed clean. My dad was on hard drugs the first few years in my life. My mom never told me what drugs *exactly* but when I asked, “Did he do more than pot?” She just said, “Yes,” and then went back to talking about her garden.

I won’t forget you daddy,
ironic—
so long ago you forgot me.
Left me at the bus stop
with no change to get home.

We had a male Pitbull; I can’t remember his name. One day, when he was napping comatose in the midday sun, I accidentally tripped on him. He bit me in the face. My mom told my dad, “I don’t care what you do, but you have to get rid of it.” I learned in my 20s that he took the dog out to the woods and shot him. This is the only protective thing I remember my father doing for me. I have spent the rest of my life trying to protect myself from the memories of him.

I hold the bear you gave me,
I have my Barbie doll too.
But all my toys frown
when they think of you.
“Fathers never leave,”
is what I heard you say.
Then tell me why you lied
when I asked you that day?

We also had a female Pitbull named Tessie. She loved laying under my dad’s old truck, this giant orange one with a white stripe down the middle. The summer air in Minnesota feels like it will suffocate you. It must have been delirium that did it to her, but one day when my dad was driving home, she ran under the truck to get under the shade. He killed her. He blamed the dog.

I wonder if for the rest of my life I’ll think it’s you on the other line. A homeless shelter here, a hovel there. A new woman here, an old woman there. I wonder if I’ll always be the stranded girl at the bus stop. Torn backpack in tiny hands, feet swinging from the bench with tears in her eyes. “He’s coming,” I tell the tenth person that asks me. “He’s coming.” All the while I grow… years go by and I’m now that woman on the other line hoping it’s you. Daddy, I’ll always hope it’s you.

My dad used to build motorcycles. He drove us in the back of the Harley tied up with bungee cords from the time we were infants until we were big enough to hold on. Not the wisest choice given your skull isn’t even fully fused until you are 20 years old, but no one on either coke, heroin, or meth ever has the brightest ideas. He needed to be closer to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, so we moved in with some friends who lived on a bus and headed 550 miles away from my grandparents. We lived in a tent for a while. I can remember bathing in the creek.

Your words.
They echo in my mind,
pulverizing my heart
into miniscule pieces.
“I have no room for someone
like you in my life.”
A pillar shattered–
one of ivory, laden with gold,
constructed with hours of prayer,
and a child’s heart.
I keep looking in the mirror—
at this someone.
This harlot. This scandalous girl.
This train wreck of emotions
I fear I will never
be able to love.
How am I supposed to learn to love me,
to stand by woman,
when no man who I can call father ever has?

We lived in a white house on Dudley street in Sturgis, SD. My sister and I shared a room that faced the alleyway headed to the city park. One of my earliest memories is of my dad stripping me naked and beating me until I bled. I am not sure what I could have done so terrible at five years old. Once my brother, four years older than me, told me to say “fuck” before I even knew what it was and told on me. I got beat for that. I got beat when I stuttered. I got beat when I didn’t listen immediately the first time. I got beat if I screamed “no daddy no!” Simply existing in the same room as my dad warranted a beating. I still freeze when authority figures ask me to come to them.

My body involuntary shakes just by the sound of your voice and I am driven back to that corner of my heart where I used to hide, where I used to make myself small. My body tenses up because taking a beating, day after day, is easier if you become small, quiet, and submissive.

We used to have this guy in our life named ‘Uncle Cliff.’ He wasn’t really an uncle. Whenever my parents would go out of town, wherever the hell it was they were going, we would have to stay with Uncle Cliff. He lived in a town called Lead, thirteen miles up Boulder Canyon. He lived in the city dump, quite literally in a giant pile of trash. I remember rummaging through the mounds and looking for treasures. I don’t think I recognized at the time what a danger it was. Once I found a gun and tried to shoot it. I remember eating out of old cans. Trying on moldy clothes. Getting giant horse lice.

When we were there, we stayed in an old 15-foot RV. Cliff owned a giant pig that knocked the trailer around at night. It was terrifying. I thought I was going to get eaten alive by a pig. Cliff killed this pig for meat when she was pregnant. To this day, I can still see the bodies of six or seven baby pigs rolling around in her intestines. I don’t need to watch horror movies; I lived them. He had a Clydesdale, those horses that are on average over 6 feet tall from head to foot, and I always wore my favorite pink glitter jelly sandals. The horse stepped on me and took off three of my toenails. I remember gooey puss and blood for weeks. I think my toes recovered ok.

Failures, misfortunes
inadequacies, addictions,
cellulite, wrinkles,
all the negatives—
Why do they shine
like the noonday sun?
Glaring in my eye
as if under a magnifying glass
made with demons
that laugh at you.
But oh, my success,
my resilience,
my beauty,
my kindness,
my creativity,
my empathy,
my artistry,
my heart…
Please!
Someone hand me
a microscope.
I can’t see them
behind the behemoth
of shame,
of doubt,
of failure,
of fear.
It seems I need to war
with the devil over
access to the magnifying glass.
It seems he needs to be
the one to eat
Alice’s shrinking cake.

When Cliff babysat us at that house on Dudley street, we dumpster dived at Lynn’s Grocery Mart for food. Really moldy, wilting brown vegetables. Just wilted vegetables and rotten fruit. Thirty-one years later I can still hardly eat vegetables. I do okay with fruit. It isn’t even a conscious thing. I think the rotten tomatoes and the moldy green peppers I ate made their way into my subconscious mind. I still gag when things are too slimy.

Someone assaulted me at this house. I don’t know who it was, but they told me to take off my clothes. It was at this house that I got my head stuck in a cement crack to the right of our basement stairs because my kitten ran away from me. We called the firemen and they literally axed the cement around my head to get me out. It was here that I tried to climb the fence, fell, and got a branch stuck up “my lady parts.” It was here that my brother and I toilet papered the trees and toilet papered a car in front of our house. I think the police came. I remember my brother liked to start things on fire. I did too.

There’s a part of my heart I have shut off.
I don’t let anyone love me there.
I don’t even love me there.
I leave her alone and caged,
frozen and imprisoned–disheveled.
The madness in her eyes has long since been gone,
and has been replaced with a deep woe and cry.
Aching for someone to give her the chance,
someone to let her prove that she can be lovely.
That she, also, needs love.
She too—just longs to be heard.
She is me, and oh how I ache,
as I turn that key and walk away,
hearing her cries.

But let’s go back to that murder of crows. Back to when the cat bit me in the leg and the dog bit me in the face. It all happened in Minnesota near my grandparent’s lake house. If I knew grandma and grandpa were nearby, I felt like I could be bit by all the animals of the world and come out fine. I believe now that I have such a unique relationship with animals because they recognize me as one of them. Untamed. Unkept. Unwanted. And I desperately needed to be near their lake. I never held anything against the snapping turtle that bit me when I was seven. He’s a snapping turtle, just doing what turtles do.

I just saw a squirrel outside my window
eating an acorn.
He’s no more concerned with his tomorrow
than he is with what is in his hands.
Passed by magenta flowers blooming
amidst the smoke and ash background
on my walk earlier.
Are they both trying to tell me something?
Perhaps I should lay down my concerns
and bloom in the gray.

I recognized, at a very young age, the difference between human and animal motivations. Animals live by instinct, nothing they do is out of revenge or from a calculated plan. I have a sixth sense, so to speak, for hypocrisy in humans. I was always saying “this is wrong” and then getting my backside beat.

Daddy have you comforted me?
I only remember your hard hand.
Daddy I’ve had to wade through
an abusive memory land.
Daddy do you remember my face?
Surely, it’s not the same.
Daddy I think you only gave me
my looks and my last name.
Daddy have I made you proud?
Daddy can you see?
I don’t understand how a daddy
can abuse a girl like me.
Daddy I’ve often missed you.
Daddy I wish you could see.
Daddy you don’t even know
the woman I’ve grown to be.
Daddy why?

But the lake could do no wrong. The animals could do no wrong. When I swam, when I paddled on my back staring at the sky as a small child, I knew I had found home in the lake. I found my place of safety, of rest, and delight. We swam, fished, and peddle boated with grandma. We floated this little plastic boat and tried to feed the fish chocolate from our Silver Mint Bars the Schwann’s man delivered. I also loved how the lake’s waters raged in the middle of the storm. I would sit on the very orange carpet of the living room and stare out the windows, watching her dance. She called me. I wanted her wild and raging waters over the wild and chaos of my family. I knew, even in danger and darkness, her motives were pure.

Hello sky.
Forgive me, it’s been awhile since I’ve stopped
and looked at you.
Thank you for your beautiful wisps
of pink tinged clouds tonight,
they really are beautiful,
my dear sky.
Perhaps you wonder
why I don’t look up as much—
why my eyes stay so firmly planted
on my feet and my worries
distract me from your vastness.
For something so large, so powerful—
you’re awfully quiet in your beauty.
Tell me sky the secret
of looking more at you,
tell me sky the secret
of your oh so many hues.
Tell me sky the secret
of your wonder
that knows no bounds,
tell me sky the secret
of how to hear your quiet sounds.
Tell me sky.

Thus, my love affair with the lake began as a small child. We drove the 550 miles every summer to my grandparent’s lake house until I was maybe eleven or twelve years old. Around this time, my dad fled from the police and never returned. The terror he caused in my psyche never left, but at least his tangible, physical, and sadistic presence was gone. My grandparents moved away from the lake; the house far too big for them to take care of. A small part of me died. No lakes were every really the same. None compared to that dock. That wood slab where we cut the fish. That corn field in front of the house. Those grandparents who were my gods that rescued me.

I felt a breeze this morning—
the faintest smell of summer grass
and I saw corn rows dancing in the wind.
Swaying their dance of abundance
to the tune of a John Deere tractor.
I can feel their tall stocks in my hands,
those giants of green,
their mazes Grandpa wouldn’t let us wander in.
It felt so forbidden and so exhilarating
to run from one end of to the other–
a little blonde haired, blue eyed rebel
(I never did get lost grandpa.)
I can smell the sunfish on my hands,
their scales shimmering in the sun
after a hard day’s play.
I’ll never forget that stillness—
the smell of grass in the wind,
the corn dancing with me.

I lost my connection to nature when I tried to commit suicide for the first time at twelve years old. My stepbrother Adrian died on May 3rd, 1997 from rolling a Jeep when my older brother was teaching him now to drive. I cursed God, flipped off the heavens, and then indulged in everything the world offered to try and numb my pain for nine years. I tried to commit suicide for the second time when I was twenty-one. I drove home with a fifth of vodka and a bottle of pills. By some grand miracle, I woke up three days later covered in puke. I didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, but I could feel my grandparent’s lake in that place between living and dying. I could feel her beckoning me home.

My vision is clouded, and I cannot see
the forest through the trees.
A vast army surrounds me,
I am outnumbered—
too many to not even one.
I do not feel whole anymore.
I am like a broken puppet
masquerading this thing
called humanity—
someone else is pulling the strings
and thinks it’s fucking hilarious
to dip me in sulfur—
and watch me burn,
again…and again.
My movements are methodic,
my responses are robotic—
and this vast army that surrounds me
just gave their last sacrifice
to watch me never rise
from the ashes again.

I moved to the suburbs of Sacramento, CA in May of 2010. Nothing about growing up as a poor farm girl from the middle of nowhere Minnesota prepared me for the culture shock of when I moved to California. I thought the cities, the drugs, gangs, sex-trafficking, and driving 95mph on a 65mph highway only existed in the movies. People mocked because I moved so slow. I wondered why they moved so fast. I spent ten years moving around the suburbs, graduated from rehab, went to college, worked various jobs, contracted an autoimmune disease, and finally, had heart surgery. This all happened pre-pandemic. When the pandemic hit, I was on track to go to Sacramento State to get a degree in child development. I have always loved children, but the more Sacramento State sent me the required documents to enroll in school, the more I felt myself die inside. I could barely hear the little girl from the lake anymore.

Sometimes I like to think that I have it all put together—
that I am not losing my mind, I am in control,
and the thoughts running through my head are sane
But most of the time I am lost–
lost in a sea of sadness I could say,
a sea of self-doubt, low self-esteem, endless cycles
of paranoia and fear.
Around me are all these problems
that just never seem to go away.
The further I swim, the more I sink–
drowning, drowning, in my own soul
because I don’t know what to do,
I don’t know what to say,
I don’t know who to turn to
at the end of the day
Like running blind through a forest,
like walking on thin ice,
like starving your cat
then letting it chase the mice.
The mouse wants to run,
the cat wants to eat.
I am that mouse.
I have no more holes to run in–
I have no more cheese to eat.
I am just running around starving in circles,
trying to stay alive,
trying to be complete.

My friend invited me to hike at Chickadee Ridge near Incline Village by the northeast shore of Lake Tahoe. It snowed almost six to eight inches the night before. She felt like it was a good idea to bring my twenty-pound dog with four-inch legs with us. When we got there, there were several dogs off leash that he wanted to fight with, and Sebastian kept getting stuck in the snow. I started to panic. It wasn’t a ‘cry until you start sobbing’ panic attack, it was rage. I hated my friend at that moment. It was her fault. I told her it wasn’t a good idea to bring him. I brought Sebastian to the car, let myself cry and scream, and then made my trek up the hill to the chickadees. The sensation of wild birds picking off seeds from your hands is something everyone needs to experience. In that moment, I became the lake girl again. I felt the bite of the snapping turtle, the bite of the cat, and the bite of my dog in their tiny little beaks. I felt my soul once again connect with my body.

A whisper on the wind—
can you feel how my heart beats for you?
A breath of air in my lungs—
can you sense the air that you take?
The very breath from my chest
you steal as you hold me.
Can you feel love in my hands
as I touch your face?
Or, is it all a moot point—
Are the walls too high for me to climb
Should I run back down
the mountain where there is no you?
You are warmth, safety, and home all in one…
I am…me.
Oh, how I wish fate would cast me a different lot,
a different heart that doesn’t bleed like mine.
Yet. the whisper on the wind—
can you not hear it?
Can you not hear how hear how my heart beats for you?

When we were leaving Chickadee Ridge, we passed by a sign that said, “Sierra Nevada University.” I had never heard of the college before. I scrolled online and read about their amazing writing program and their Writers in the Woods Series where authors from the globe come to speak. I applied. They awarded me a scholarship and I moved to South Lake Tahoe in September of 2020. I wonder, had COVID never happened, if I would be studying child development at Sacramento State. I would still be the girl hiding in the city, too afraid to be left alone in the woods. I wouldn’t be nurturing my natural born gift and talent to be a writer. I would be learning along with the rest of the world, “Wash your hands. Don’t go outside. Don’t talk to strangers. Follow the guaranteed career paths, even if it means relinquishing your dreams.”

He cannot tell I barely shower
these days and self-care
seems non-existent in
my fight for survival.
I feel alone, yet I’m in an urban
wonderland.
Everything I could possibly
want is at my fingertips and
I crave nothing more
then that the tides would stop,
my heart would heal,
and that the stranger could
see a whole woman—
not one capsized and lost
at sea.

I wouldn’t be living next to one of the most beautiful lakes in the world where I can connect with the spirits of my grandparents, of my childhood innocence. I know everyone loves Lake Tahoe for various reasons, but she is an entity beyond time and space for me. She is a place of safety, of peace, a place where I can float nude in the middle of the water and hear my heartbeat against her powerful tide.

I do look at the lake as one does a lover because of all that she means to me. She is grandma. She is grandpa. She is joy, laughter, hope, and life. She kept me alive as a child when I wanted to do nothing more than tie rocks to my ankles and let her swallow me whole. That snapping turtle saved my life that day. My monster of a father is hidden, trapped somewhere deep within her waters where I know he can never hurt me. I don’t have to fear getting my backside beat for simply existing.

Maybe I’m a sparrow too.
Maybe I’ve clipped my own wings out of fear of losing
the only good parts of my childhood worth keeping.
Maybe I want to stay in the tortured, tattered, and bruised nest,
to keep some semblance of family—
to stay tied to the sparrow who occasionally kissed my forehead.
Fly little sparrow…
fly!

I breathe you in lake; I breathe you out, carrying within me your essence. Your beauty. Your power. Your depths. Thank you for keeping me alive all these years. Namaste. I bow to you.

 

 

Phoenix Rayne, currently a resident of South Lake Tahoe, California, recently finished her first semester at Sierra Nevada University in Incline Village, Nevada where she is studying to get her BFA in creative writing. She graduated in the Spring of 2020 from Sierra College in Rocklin, California with her associate’s degree in English. When she was five years old, she picked up her first Shel Silverstein book and instantly fell in love with poetry, dreaming to be a published author one day. Her first poem, “Winter’s Bliss,” was published in 2001, with several poems following. She has dreams and goals of becoming a published author, poet, podcaster, and life coach. She was born in Minnesota, raised in South Dakota, and has a passion for animals, nature, mental and emotional health, and all things related to Marvel Comics. Writing has always been her way of expressing her deep emotions and a way to bring the human experience to life with the written word.