Your Place

Rippled Reflection - Canandaigua Lake - L. Riedman 2025

Do you have A Place?

A place where your whole body just goes: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh?

We all need a place like this. A special location where we get lost in something other than ourselves – bigger than ourselves. To see something that touches a part of us that is part of it. There is some sort of recognition that goes on for me when I’m in my place. I belong here.

When I am in my place, I lose myself in it. Something about it overwhelms me in a good way. I am a witness to something -- perhaps it’s beauty -- beyond my comprehension. Whatever it is, it’s something so much larger than me, yet I don’t feel small in its presence. I feel part of it. Larger than myself.

I am not afraid of it. It beckons me. It welcomes me.

Bodies of water are my places. Any body of water.... Heck, it could be the ocean, a lake, a bubbling brook, or even my bathtub in a pinch.

Something happens to my mind and body when I gaze at the lake from my deck at home. I feel fortunate to live near Canandaigua, one of the beautiful Finger Lakes in Upstate New York. Something happens to me, my mind and body, as I drive down the hill and approach my home. This magnificent view of the south end of the lake opens up before me. That view breaks my heart open, and I almost gasp every time I see the beauty of it.

It’s an invitation to witness something majestic, beautiful, and open. My body responds with an Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

That’s how you know it’s your place.

Water touches something deep inside of me. I’ve read that one of the reasons the ocean has always been a place of healing is a combination of the fresh salty breezes, the soothing cadence of the waves crashing on the shore, and the water itself. Perhaps our cells recognize something in water that is in us. After all, we are 60% water, right? Perhaps it’s as simple as chemistry. It feels to me like a recognition. “I know this somehow. This is me, too.”

It’s a feeling of coming home.

I am so thankful I know my place, and all my life I’ve sought it.

As a child, my Mom would pack us all in the car to escape the junkyard and the summer heat. We’d end up at Cedar Lake, a small lake with a beach (complete with a snack bar). My sisters, brother, and I would sit side by side, our skinny, bare legs poking out of our swimsuits, sticking to the vinyl backseat in the car. Even now, as I recall this memory, I can feel the warm air rushing from the open windows whipping our hair around as we chanted, “We’re almost there. We’re almost there,” over and over, probably driving my poor mom crazy. We didn’t stop our chanting until we could recognize the turn in the road where we’d be able to glance the lake before us.

I guess that little lake was our place back then. I never asked my Mom, but I’m pretty sure, even though my Mom didn’t know how to swim, that lake was her place, too. A place to escape to and be somewhat free of obligations and the stressors of life, even for a few hours.

As a teenager, I lived close to the Long Island Sound in Connecticut. We’d skip school for “beach days” in early June before the beaches were full of summer tourists. We’d put our suits on under our school clothes, stuff our beach towels in our school book bags, and somehow fit in our double album covers lined with tin foil and our bottles of Johnson’s Baby Oil with iodine drops in them.

In those days, I felt invincible and free. Being the girl who was afraid to do anything “wrong”, I was always nervous about defying the “authorities” by skipping school, but that trepidation would disappear as soon as my toes sank into the sand and I saw the big blue ocean before me.

This memory evokes sensory details that are etched in my brain. The feeling of our young bodies, slick with baby oil, the murmur of someone’s transistor radio playing in the background, the sound and feel of those waves as they washed up against my feet, daring me to go in but not yet ready to.

It was my happy place and always will be.

That is why it felt so right, as Rich and I were seeking our next home after the kids were grown and gone, to find a place near the lake. Near the water. It felt like home.

I feel so lucky that it is our home.

What is your place? What makes it yours?

I’d love to hear. Please share it in the comments.