Lake Reflections: The Sleeping Porch

By Debbie Nania

You know how some scents and sounds can immediately take you back to another time and place? That is what the smell of the lake and the sound of the leaves of poplar trees, rustling in the wind do for me. I live on a lake and every so often the breeze rustles the leaves of my poplar trees and I smell that wonderful “lake smell.” I am transported to a place so familiar I could almost weep with the joyful memory of it.

Mermaid Debbie's grandparent's home on Hauser Lake in Northern Idaho
The sleeping porch is on the far right of photo

I am a child again; maybe ten or eleven. My grandparents had a home on Hauser Lake in Northern Idaho. 

It had a huge, screened sleeping porch, surrounded by poplar trees. I had long outgrown naps, and you couldn’t pay me to take one at that age…unless it was on that porch! There was a big, king sized bed that was my Grandparent’s and also a twin bed up against one of the screened walls. 

Grandma loved pillows and she had a huge collection of them lining the twin bed. I preferred the smaller bed. It was soft, cozy, and the most perfect place for a nap. Laying there, nestled in a pile of pillows, I was safe and completely comfortable. The leaves fluttered when the breeze hit them. There was a kind of duck that made an eerie, wonderful call and the lake smelled like a combination of water, fish, and earth. I was content, happy to sink my head down in those pillows, and drift off to sleep to the sounds and scents of nature.

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