Where all are one

This buddhist teaching appealed to me when I heard it ten years ago. I am still intrigued by it:

In the realm of the god Indra is a vast net that stretches infinitely in all directions. In each "eye" of the net is a single brilliant, perfect jewel. Each jewel also reflects every other jewel, infinite in number, and each of the reflected images of the jewels bears the image of all the other jewels — infinity to infinity. Whatever affects one jewel effects them all.The moral of Indra's net is that the compassionate and the constructive interventions a person makes or does can produce a ripple effect of beneficial action that will reverberate throughout the universe or until it plays out. By the same token you cannot damage one strand of the web without damaging the others or setting off a cascade effect of destruction.

Growing up in eastern Washington, the daughter of a dry-land farmer who loved to fish, I  can’t remember a summer when we didn’t spend some time at “the lake.” Not always the same lake, seldom for more than a weekend. A jumble of memories of Silver Lake,   taking the Gifford Ferry across the smallest span of Lake Roosevelt, arriving at Twin Lakes, west of Inchelium, learning to Water Ski on Lake Curlew, being at Uncle Victor and Aunt Ellen’s cabin on Priest Lake for the Fourth of July. My sister burning the palm of her hand with sparklers facing the wrong way.  Sitting quietly interminable hours in the fishing boat. Major sunburns. Diving underwater. Swimming like a fish. Three years of weeklong true vacations on “the coast,” Long Beach, WA with the men catching the limit of salmon every day, the moms and kids building sand castles, hunting driftwood, horseback riding, visiting lighthouses, eating salt water taffy, playing in the frigid waters of the Pacific Ocean.

I continue, every summer, to seek solace from the water, from one sacred space, in the month of August. When I leave for the lake now, it is this place, Bead Lake, nine miles north of Newport, Washington, above the Pend Orielle River. A small, pristine, three fingered mountain lake, nestled in the Chinook National Forest, with only a quarter of the shoreline privately owned and developed. From the deck I watch Osprey, Merganser and Red Neck Grebe, Hummingbird, Tanager and Goldfinch, Stellar Jay, Kingfisher, and Wild Turkey, Deer, Chipmunk, Rabbit, Squirrel, and Bat. 

This year, the week after my 70th birthday, I made pilgrimage again, realizing this is the one place that remains, where all my stories merge into one. We celebrated with family and friends on Sunday. My daughters dressed in matching outfits, recalling the days I dressed them alike for Christmas and Easter. It was a day to celebrate survival; to say thank you to those who have walked through many years and shared a lifetime of experiences with me; to embrace life as it is for me, not as I might wish it to be; to know that I am glad to be alive, and to remember that I am not really alone on this journey. The “timeline” display of the decades of my life, had above it the picture my first husband took on Labor Day, 1968, on the top stair of the deck, after diving into the lake and swimming during a rain storm. My youngest daughter describes me as “shining.” I was newly married. I was happy.

It has been fifty years since that memory was created. Three husbands, each spending time here. Another jumble of memories, these more linear. Bringing Bill to meet Aunt Lois and Uncle Lawerence, who were the builders and original owners. Being here that Labor Day, coming again with our new baby on the Fourth of July, 1972, the final time we were together before he returned to Viet Nam to die on August 11. The pictures he took, framed and left on the cabin walls. Purchasing the cabin with Dave, my second husband, in partnership with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law. The crowds of cousins and grandparents, with laughter and squeals coming from the water. The summer of our separation, being here with my daughters, sorting out my future. The night Dave arrived, arm in a sling, contusions on his face, after the boating accident on Lake Couer d’Alene, where he had gone to drink and share his sorrows with a friend. Two summers more, here with the girls, and their friends, still considering paths my life might take. Bringing Larry, John and Anne, returning the summer after our move across the state, surrounded by the horde of cousins and step-cousins, unable to sleep with teenage and young adults up all night. Twenty-six people in a cabin that sleeps 15. The hardest of memories, with an errant sky rocket burning a hole in the sail of my boat, tempers flaring and harsh words spoken.

And then, more than thirty years of spending two weeks, often only Larry and me, with time to read, to watch the night sky, to kayak and swim, to entertain friends, to sew together quilt tops, to attend concerts at the Sandpoint Festival. The harder memories of three years on dialysis, trips to Spokane for treatments or supplies, restless nights, Larry being perpetually cold. 

Coming alone last year and this year, having time with my sister from Texas, my oldest and youngest daughters and grandchildren, and time with myself, to understand how my loneliness can be transformed with solitude.

Yet, August is the cruelest month (with a nod to T.S. Eliot). Every trip to the lake ends with a visit to the cemetery.  One gravesite with markers for my father, my mother, my sister, and a niece. Three funerals held in August, one in December. Their missing voices echo in this place, all part of the jumbled memories of time together. I like to think that Larry let go of this earthly coil in June to spare me one more loss in August. He always honored my wounded past, always knew that I needed lake time, to reconnect, reimagine, reengage those lives so dear to me.

Indeed, this place, this time in August, is necessary and sacred. I breath the past, I listen to my heart, I make resolutions and promises to myself and to this cloud of witnesses, to keep on living and loving. The great net of life holds us together. In this one place, in all places. What affects one, affects us all.