A Lake Geneva Fall

The lake in the summer is what we all know it to be. Blue waves roll on weekends, whipped by wind and watercraft, each wave pushed higher and higher until the lake is a flat mountain of moguls, every wave coming at a different angle, every cruise somewhat, or entirely, bumpy. We know the green shoreline, the deciduous darkness that swaddles the lake and makes even the most obvious homes look, and feel, like private woodsy retreats. We know the sunrises and the sunsets, the pales of the blue sky and the warmth of an orange horizon. We know the piers, white and sturdy, the way they protrude and the way they dull from use and from age, until the brightest white deck of June becomes the antiqued deck of September. We know the clarity of the water on a Tuesday, and wish for it at times on a Saturday. We know the weeds that grow and the fish that bite and the perfect pattern of what we wish were an endless summer.

We know these things because we live them, and we capture them, and we hold tight to them for as long as we can. We think we’re on the inside, that we, being long lived patrons of the lake and the scene are somewhat tuned in to the lake in a way that the daytripping tour boaters are not. We think we see the lake through a different lens. We think we have an angle, a shortcut, an intense knowledge of the lake and the summer spent there. We think we’re somehow special.

But we aren’t. Summer at Lake Geneva is for everyone. For lakefront scions and for lake access revelers, yes, but also for the family that vacations on its shores for one week, or the family who takes three trips each summer to walk the town and buy ice cream before returning home at dark. They know the lake too, they can see those waves and walk those piers, and they can imagine what it would be like to live in those homes. Summer is for everyone, and there are no real secrets to a Lake Geneva summer. It’s just summer, on a great lake, with a plot so simple that even a child can easily understand it. A Lake Geneva summer is a beautiful thing, but it’s an obvious thing.

And with that, there is this: Summer is for tourists, fall is for locals. Or, Lake Geneva aficionados who desire to see the lake as this boy does, as a local with a deep and unwavering appreciation for the mystery that is this big lake. In the fall, there is science. The lake turns over, the warm surface water cools and sinks, bringing the large fish that spend their summers deep, under the dark cover of those chilled depths greedily gobbling bait fish, to the shallows. The lake clears, which is to say that the gin clear water of summer somehow becomes more clear, in the way that replacing old glass with new glass takes the transparency to an entirely different level. Seaweed that grew fast and tall under the bright sun of summer falls to the bottom where it will lie dormant until the next growing season comes, and with it the waves and the boats and the people.

Fall brings this change in the water, to the depths, to the wildlife that inhabit it, but more important it brings a quiet to the surface. It brings, along with showy colors and brisk winds, peace. It soothes the summer worn soul with a refreshing splash of calm, quiet, and solitude. For those seeking a vacation destination where quiet is the rule, they needn’t find another lake, they simply needed to wait for fall. There is time now to explore, to learn, to travel down small side roads that one wouldn’t dare approach on the busiest of summer weekends. While we know fall to be different, to be cooler, to be overlaid with sepia, fall is no less fun than the loudest summer afternoon. This should be obvious, but if you’ll find your way to the lake this weekend and then walk its shore or drive over it, you’ll find that this fact isn’t an obvious to the masses as it is to us.

And so it goes, a summer that I’m letting go of, a fall that I’m ready to embrace. While others are preparing to take their boats out, I’m preparing to use mine with some consistency for the first time this year. Fall isn’t for putting away our lakefront aim, it’s for sharpening that focus. There are depths to explore, shallows to see with unrivaled clarity, a shoreline to wander. These are the times to learn about the lake, to get to know it, to fall in love with it all over again.