Breaking News from the Lake
The World is not on Fire — I repeat, the World is not on Fire
Friday afternoon and the lake is working its magic. The oldies criss-cross, adhering to strict mental lanes. They only manoeuvre in straight lines and they are the bravest of all. Out they go past the diving islands, out where the young dare not go without paddle boards and inflatable dinghies, out to the furthest reaches where the reeds grab your heels and the catfish hide until we have all cleared off and left them in peace. The oldies are braver than you or I.
For these teens the sight of the opposite sex stripped to their bathing essentials is second nature. Skin holds no thrill. They’re blissfully, innocently, uninhibited. By the reeds a gaggle of teenage girls stand thigh high in the water taking twenty minutes to decide it’s too cold to enter. It’s not too cold. They know it and the boys who come splashing by drenching them, provoking interaction, know it. It’s a ritual as old as time around here just as it was when these same girls just happened to catwalk past said group of boys several times on the way to the kiosk or bathroom regardless of how indirect the route may have been. They are young and the lake is a safe place.
Out on the floating blue diving platforms the truly inventive peacock shines. A girl swims out with a school binder full of handwritten notes held above her head. All on the bank are gripped as the pages teeter ever closer to the water as she tires. She’s a wild woman, and she’s just become a legend of the lake. She makes it up on the platform to ‘study’ with her friend but the boys have other ideas. Three young bucks are quickly on the scene and one asks her if the pages made it intact. Before she can reply he’s cannonballed into the lake and drenched her — the notes survive. The study pantomime is abandoned and boys and girls wrestle one another off of the platform.
By the kiosk the regulars nurse their beers and watch the day unfold. Their speedos are almost swallowed by their enviable guts. Don’t mistake these gentlemen for drunks however. These are an exalted few. Each morning they arrive on their quads and scooters and hold court. Theirs is the prime bench exactly halfway been the toilet and the side window of the kiosk — their window. During any break in the insatiable demand for fries and ice-cream the dishevelled kiosk operator will join them for a beer. He grunts and drags his heels when a new customer arrives at the front window. They laugh at him that he has to work on such a day and lower himself to serve the public. His intentional bare competency when serving beer and fries is his rebellion for not being allowed to join them full time at the side window.
Little kids squeal and laugh as they step in swan shit. Fathers glow as they see their kids for the first time this week. In the background campers string fairy lights across bushes preparing for a lively night of drinking. That will be after dark when the lake becomes something else but no less essential.
In all of this, you do not have to look closer to see the black girl playing Uno with her white friends. Nobody bats an eyelid at the tubby Turkish boys provocatively playing loud rap music on their bluetooth speakers. To enter the lake one must edge past a large group of Russians who are parked upon the bank. They are several beers into the weekend as the bottles and salami wrappers strewn about indicate. But they know how to hold their beer. They laugh heartily, talk without pause and take to the lake for a sobering shot of cold water between drinks. These men go no further than gut height and if the women in leopard print bikinis need to go in above knee height, then it means that some poor kid is about to get loudly berated.
On a giant inflatable swan three teens go unnoticed as they drift slowly out to deep water. They are torn directly from a scene in Dawson’s Creek or some other teen soap opera. One girl is visibly insecure in her bathing suit. She sits upright in a foetal position, clearly self-conscious about her weight. Her companions aren’t judging her. The only boy is more preoccupied in finding comfort in his own sexuality. He is discovering that he is most likely gay and around these girls he can craft his identity. All three are sweetly awkward. Along they drift on their swan island, safe and content in each other’s company. When it is time for them to find shade from the brilliant sunshine they row to shore, make their way past the badly burned Russians, dodge the wild, swan shit smeared kids and buy their ice-creams from the kiosk where the only interactions they have with regulars involve toasts.
For so many, myself included, the lake in summer is their happiest place.
But I worry for those three teens, the black girl, the Turkish boys when they leave the lake. I worry about all the special interest groups that will tell them that the world is on fire and that in order to survive they will need to find and fight for their own tribe. I am saddened by the fact that in a few years those three sweet insecure teens on swan island will be driven into different camps. The beauty of the German lake in summer is that it is truly inclusive. It welcomes all without condition. It is a safe place to show the world who you are without judgement and that builds confidence, a confidence to take out into the world. The lake shows us that our insecurities lie within ourselves and they are overcome not by demanding that others accept who we are — they do already — but by accepting ourselves. To this end, the lake in summer is the best training ground and the best antidote to toxic tribalism.
