By Iris Krasnow

My 2015 stint as a camp counselor is nearly over and I’m sitting at the lip of Blue Lake at dusk, lulled by the calm waters and the dusting of pastel clouds. I am thinking about the swift passage of summer, my favorite season, and the hectic days of fall that lie ahead.

Summer shifts us into an open-ended sense of time and an expanded sense of ourselves, thrust into a warm and hypnotic flow that my children call “chilling”.  We revel in the hot sun and the added opportunity for outdoor play. We are grateful for the bosses that let us work in July and August from home offices – where we don’t have to change out of shorts and flip-flops.

When the season is about to turn from this luscious lethargy into the mad whirl of autumn and the “back to school” mentality, I dream up ways to hold fast to the soul of summer, to hold on to my beloved Agawak.

My way of clinging to my summer self when the dense trees are stripped naked and my packed Inbox is stressing me out is to crank up the Beach Boys and sit at our kitchen table in Maryland overlooking the Severn River. When the sky is leaden and the flip-flops have been replaced by fleece-lined boots, the stillness of the water never fails to soothe.

We throw our worries into the water and they get crushed in the currents, leaving peace in the wake.

What is it about an expanse of ocean or lakes or rivers that centers us, that opens us, that diverts us from the frenzy of commitments that cram our calendars once fall rolls around.

The pristine Blue Lake of Wisconsin has been my companion, in person and in my heart, since 1963 when I first became an Agawak camper. On the water, our answers for whatever tugs at us come quicker, with more clarity, unfailingly.

The water is our constant companion through loss, change and life’s inevitable transitions.