Paddleboarding at first light

The lake was glass. Not nearly glass, not almost glass, actual glass. I slid the board in without a ripple and pushed off from the launch with the paddle held quiet across my knees.

There is a kind of silence that only happens on still water at first light. It is not the absence of sound, it is the presence of small sounds you never normally notice. A trout breaking the surface twenty yards out. A pine cone falling somewhere on the far shore. My own breath.

I drifted for a while with my eyes closed. When I opened them the sun had cleared the ridgeline and the reflection of the trees on the water had gone from black to deep green. I left the camera in the truck on purpose. Some mornings are not for keeping, they are just for being inside of.

By the time I paddled back, a few other boards were heading out. We nodded at each other the way people do when they share a thing without needing to talk about it.