The pond is calm at the moment but is apt to alter its mood at any time without warning. A shift of the wind can instantly transform its glassine surface to a small sea of ripples and wavelets that lap the serrated shoreline of this humble body of water.
A topographical view of Wadleigh Pond shows multiple bodies of water separated by narrow strips of land that provide egresses to the area from several vantage points. Two large islands dominate the pond’s landscape, and its waters drain into the Saco River near South Street in Biddeford via Swan Pond Brook. I always pass slowly over what the locals call “the culvert,” the large pipe that makes accessing this end of the road possible, where I stop to marvel at being caught, as it were, between two bodies of water, each part of the greater whole yet bearing its own individual characteristics.
Surface wind currents are visible once again this morning across the pond, with large areas remaining calm while others around them ripple in whatever direction the breeze ordains. Oak trees lean over the shoreline, their straggler leaves swinging in a wind that appears to be coming from the northeast as I write, which probably accounts for the change in air temperature as well. Thin, alto-stratus clouds hang above the tall pines on the farthest shore, but the rest of the sky is clear, pale blue, characteristic of this time of year when the dry air acts less as a purveyor of color than during the more humid spring and summer months.
As the day progresses, the light shifts, and the sun sets below the tree line at the pond’s western end, which is just barely visible from here. As night settles in, lights come on in houses on the far shores, casting thin shimmering beams across the pond, and in one of those back yards, a camp fire burns. It’s an unusually mild evening for this time of year, and I can’t help but wish I’d had more of such weather before winter sets in again.
Today the wind is up, and the surface of the pond is a roiling sea of white-crested breakers fated to expire upon the narrow shoreline. I will spend considerable time in the weeks and months to come ”“ for as long as it is ordained for me to be here ”“ in this place near what Thoreau called Earth’s eye. And as often as I can, I will look up at stars at night and gaze across the silvery water at the rising moon, old friends I have neglected of late. I’ll step out onto the frosty porch of a morning and cast a wary eye on the squirrels just waiting for me to set out a little more seed, of which they will surely make quick and messy work. This minor inconvenience aside, I will remind myself that this is what squirrels do, and that yes, I am in the woods again, near a pond this time, in yet another place that might be classified as a little piece of heaven.
— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at rachell1950@yahoo.com.
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