Here and There at the Lake by Janice Vis
“Here and There at the Lake” by Janice Vis is the winner of the
CRAFT 2024 EcoLit Challenge.
In “Here and There at the Lake,” Janice Vis creates a “lake-memory,” using the physical space of Lake Ontario as a container for her meditation on the act of remembering, with all its complicated, concurrent ripples. In Vis’s arresting flash essay, the lake is the backdrop for so much recollection—and lack thereof. Many treat the lake as a place of forgetting, of memories discarded “like litter,” of secrets hidden beneath the gleam of the water’s smooth surface. However, as Vis takes a daily wander through the lakeside, she observes, remembers, and recognizes the people and animals who inhabit it. The reader, invited along, notices anew all the moments that make up the lake, the memories that span from tenderness to melancholy, from corruption to joy. As Vis continues her wander, her focus shifts from the outward environment to the inward, snagging on memories surrounding a sexual assault. Grappling with this pain, she turns again to the potency of the lake as a holder of memory. This natural space is suffused with memories, good and bad, allowing Vis to curate, as she explains in her author’s note, an “experience…simultaneously political, personal, traumatic, and healing.” Just as the lake remembers the sensory footprints of its past and still expands, so can the narrator acknowledge her memories and move forward from her trauma. Through the containing device of the lake, the “lake-memory” itself, Vis and reader alike learn how to remember, and how to go on living. —CRAFT
Content Warning—sexual assault
Along the western shores of Lake Ontario, the water splits the land and pools into a marshy inlet webbed with bike trails and bridges. I walk these paths every day, just wandering about, here and there. The water, too, wanders. Here—the lake has fed sassafras trees for centuries. There—the waves open and close, accepting pebbles thrown by a small child. Here—the water rushes under a bridge, just like it did on the day when I took my mother’s phone call. And there—along the horizon, old factories dumped their sludge; the water’s shimmering surface still hides swarms of harmful bacteria. Here, too—city council recently tried to hide a sewage spill, a local scandal, a repeating history.
Because here, some humans treat memories like litter, things dropped and forgotten. Metal signs now spring from the lakeshore: Do not touch this water. It is toxic. Bad memories live here. The lake itself needs no reminder. Water does not forget. It is not easy to be a lake here, I think, carrying so much memory.
And yet, here, too—ducklings gather. They return every year, sure and soft as dandelions. The lake remembers them, just as it remembers to care for the raspberries and the muskrats and the lilac bushes that perfume the shoreline. I remember an elderly couple pausing by one of those towering purple plants, leaning in to smell every blossom their delicate fingers could reach. They were part of the quiet Sunday afternoon crowd, and while I hadn’t seen them before, I knew them all the same. I’ve learned to recognize the people who flow through these lake paths. Here—the illegal fishermen spread out lawn chairs. There—the joggers stop, stretch, and stare aimlessly across the waters. Here—the tourists picnic. Their young children gleefully screech every time a Canada goose waddles their way.
Only a few notice me, only the people who also come to the lake every day, but not for sportsmanship or photo ops. No, they come for desire, or haunting, or redemption. Here—The Old Biker tells me that he wasted his youth on drugs and cigarettes, is clean now, and wants to be by the water. There—The Woman in Flip-Flops calls me “love” and asks if I’m “alright,” but neither of us reveal our secrets. And then, here—The Gambler, an elderly man who drives an electric wheelchair, tells me that he has no family left, and is trying to forget the poker tables by chasing rays of sunlight. Just once, he asks me: “What is a beautiful young woman doing here? It seems strange that you are always so alone.” I make a joke that I’m not alone, I’m with him. He laughs, accepts the evasion with grace. Maybe someday I’ll tell him that we are alike. I, too, have no family left.
Here, again—the bridge where I took my mother’s phone call. I should have let it ring, should not have listened to her sigh, say that sometimes you just have to forgive and forget.
Or maybe someday, I’ll tell The Gambler that we’re not alike, because I don’t come to the lake to forget. I come to be in the thick of remembering, because it is not easy to be a woman here either.
Here—I tried to peel off my skin, to leave it behind. After all, what was one more dirty thing in a dirty, dirty lake? There—I watched a couple protect a baby turtle crossing a bike path. They stood guard until the coin-sized shell disappeared into the water. Here—I sat with a water snake on my birthday because I had no one to talk to. There—I made that first call to the women’s crisis line. Here—I told my dad that I’d spent four years being raped, and he said that we’ll never really know what happened. There—I picked mulberries until my fingers were blue and sticky and sweet. Here, again—now ducklings glide under the bridge.
These memories are like waves: distinct yet overlapping, always the same, always different. They collect, pool, resist linear chronology, but hold together nonetheless. I cannot remember much at all without remembering the lake, but the lake is more than a memory—it is here, creating memories still. And so, I walk down to the water every day to learn from the lake, to learn how to remember, and to know myself as part of this lake-memory.
JANICE VIS is a creative nonfiction writer, course instructor, and PhD candidate in the Department of English & Cultural Studies at McMaster University. She was the winner of the 2023 Susan Crean Award for Creative Nonfiction, and her work has been published in various academic and creative venues. Find her on Instagram at @janice.elaine.vis.
Featured image by Ronin, courtesy of Unsplash.
