One beautiful, sunny summer day I rented a small rowboat at a lake I frequented just to take pictures from the lake interior outward to its shores.

This lake was special to me. I met its small beach in a yellow bikini at age three and remember inflatable-ringing my way to the farthest part of the deep section with a duck swim. I still believe I could've gone to the other end of the lake if the lifeline ropes didn't fence me in as my parents beckoned me back to shore. It was the proudest achievement I've ever had in a two-piece bikini.

On the boat-renting day I had an old-school camera with the plan to take pictures as I rowed across the lake. The camera needed two hands to steady, so I'd put down the oars to snap shots of the water and sky, careful not to drop it or get it wet. All for what? A different point of view.

This lake nurtured my imagination and taught me many lessons growing up. It proved my buoyancy when I learned how to swim. First the doggie-paddle, then an aspiring Olympiad who'd purposely tangle in the growing seaweed to heroically escape its monstrous tentacles. All this while its orange-sand beach nurtured my artistic side like a live-action EtchASketch® as I formed turtles and sandcastles with unlimited do-overs.

The lake fed my sense of wonder when I found small snails and crayfish washed ashore and watched tadpoles turn into frogs each summer. In the roped-off swim sections, I learned about the safety of boundaries and gained an awareness in seeing the consequences of ignoring them. I laugh at my naivety now, but the first time I "eeked!" after an innocent sunfish brushed up against my bare leg in waist-deep water, I realized the ropes didn't keep them out and there were certainly more!

Beach lifeguards instilled the urgency of the buddy system and in taking regular swim breaks. On ever hour they'd blow their whistles to get everyone out of the water for a 10-minute break. Now I know the break was two-fold: Safety for swimmers, and a respite for them. I'd bide my time making mounds and moats at the shore which melted as soon as the ‘go back in' whistle blew and the running splash of a hundred feet laughed back into the water.

The weekend before my wedding, my childhood best friend and I stood on a dock at the water's edge looking out on the lake. I met Ruth when I was 9 and she 11 at the same campground with the lake I loved. We spent our summers together riding bikes and swimming and nights talking and laughing into the wee hours as we slept on the ground in a small tent after eating marshmallows by the campfire.

Ruth was a big sister to me and standing at the water's edge was a metaphor for the transition about to take place. As pained silence grew between us, I seized upon the moment in wild abandonment and jumped into the water fully-clothed. I wanted to commemorate our last weekend together with laughter, as our childhood summers had reached its Labor Day weekend. Astonished and amused, she laughed and jumped in, too.

I traveled through time that day in the rowboat. As I oared my way around the lake, my past auto-played like home movies through my mind. Twenty years had passed since standing at the water's edge with Ruth, but the hot sun reflecting off the water and sounds of joyous beach noise carrying across its surface felt the same as they always did. The lake felt like home.

Before I returned the boat, I imagined an older woman sitting on a wooden bench off in the distance. She was wearing a shawl, a symbolic tapestry of experience, looking out on the lake. Though I couldn't see her face, I recognized her as wisdom holding space for me to sit with her. For the last 15 years I've carried her with me, sitting occasionally, knowing she is an important part of my evolving experience.

Today, as I revisit the day in the boat, I appreciate that point of view isn't just about where I'm sitting at the moment. It changes constantly depending on the lens I'm looking through and where my heart longs to wander.

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