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I had a dream last night.
Mid October was uncharacteristically late in the year for a fishing trip, but it would be one last hurrah before the lake froze over for the winter in November. This would be my first time in years out on the water, and her first time in the area. Upon stepping into it, the boat rocked back and forth as we loaded our supplies, a gentle reminder that we were leaving dry land. Tent & sleeping bags, check. Rods & tackleboxes, check. Cooler loaded with Shasta cola, check. We went down the list, packing everything that we had brought with us into my cousin's boat. A hand-me-down from our grandparents, it was a rickedy old fiberglass hull crestliner, the carpets worn, stained, and crusty from decades of fish slime, but for our purposes, it was exactly what we needed. Everything loaded, I started the motor, trolled out past the no-wake-zone, and got the boat up on plane, looking to the GPS for guidence to stay within the lake's channel, out of the peril of the many various rocky reefs. The water was a sheet of glass stretching out in front of us, the only disturbance in the surface being that of our own wake. I looked to the passenger seat behind me, where she sat, her beautiful pink hair and floppy rabbit ears trailing behind her in the wind. Behind her, the sunset transformed the clouds from white, to orange, to a bright neon pink. For that moment, just that one brief snapshot in time, paradise.
And then I woke up.
