The Pond: Minnows, Memories, and Microcosm
The pond wasn’t always there. Among my earliest memories, at age four, I walked with my mother along a path in the woods, encountering a large wet area with a puddle of water. I squatted by the puddle and stared at a turtle that looked back at me before it retreated into its portable home.
The Pond’s Early Life
Then Uncle Roy came with his bulldozer and dug the pond. It was a lovely, small oasis in the middle of woods and fields. My father stocked the pond with bass and bream, and my mother fished there when she had time, taking her cane pole and digging earth worms from the wet ground by the back spigot to use as bait. Standing on a bank, she cast her line and waited for the bobbing cork to be tugged. Any small fish she caught, she threw back, but any large ones, she brought back to clean under a towering oak tree and cook for supper in her heavy iron skillet.
One side of the pond was sandy, and my family made that area our swimming hole. After working hard all day during the sweltering summers, we went to the pond as the sun sank below the fields, casting a pink glow on the water. I waded in with my siblings to play, cool off, and relax against the warm water.
Sometimes, I explored around the water’s edge to look for minnows. I longed to catch one as they darted through the shallows. Despite my plotting and strategizing to sneak up on them, they rushed from me, moving too swiftly to be caught with bare hands. Schools of silver minnows swam so close yet remained so far away. They would never be in my grasp, like many elusive desires in life.
We also used the pond for farm irrigation. One year, when lack of rain threatened to destroy our crops, my father, in desperation, bought an irrigation system to try to avert ruin and salvage the harvest. My family and I walked the rows to lay pipe, listened to water spraying across the fields, and relocated the irrigation system until the entire crop was watered. The pond saved the day, offering life to what was dying.
The Pond Today
Since those days, the pond has changed, in part because of increasingly severe drought, when water levels get extremely low, revealing small islands. I continue to visit the pond to reflect on its changing life and on mine. A small wooden pier, built by a niece who chose to marry at the pond, stands in the area where my siblings and I once played. I retreat there often to gaze into the water and muse on the natural world and the passing of time.
It’s a place where I sometimes still hear a fish leap with a splash, where occasional ducks or migratory tropical birds touch down their feet when they need a rest, where pines and plants grow around the water’s edge. With their shallow roots, a few pines have toppled into the water, enhancing the habitat for fish but disturbing the placid water. The turtles that seemed to have disappeared decades ago have reappeared. With their habitats diminished, they congregate, like all creatures, where they can thrive.
The pond is a microcosm of nature, beautiful yet showing stress, at risk from external forces like climate changes and increased temperatures. It still reflects its surroundings like a mirror, and I in turn reflect on its health and ecosystem, while I breathe in its quietness and serenity. It is a special place for me, with its own history and evolution.
Special Places in Nature
You too perhaps have a favorite natural setting or landscape that serves as an anchor for your memories, where you go or have gone to reflect on life and consider changes wrought by time. These spots remind us that the natural world is our environment, a setting for our lives. It helps shape us and deserves respect and protection to ensure it continues long after we are gone.
