Lake Merrymeeting – The Light Behind the Story

I contemplate emergence while watching dragonflies come into form... — Rocks emerging out of Merrymeeting Lake, New Durham, NH

We spent the past week going back and forth to the lake. It was supposed to be a quiet week, but life has a way of pulling us into its force without giving us directions. We were sort-of prepared for chaos. We knew my daughter would have morning sessions for her summer program to attend. Then there was work. She trying to fill in for the weeks she would be missing during her three weeks residence, plus my scattered yoga classes, and my husband’s half-day he didn’t want to give up.

On Wednesday, the day when no one had anything to do beyond noontime, the sky decided to dance rain while the fridge went on vacation. It could have been worse. We were home anyway, as who wants to water ski in a rainstorm?

As I shoveled bags of frozen food into coolers I began to think about fortune. How lucky we were to be home to save this food that would surely perish in a day or two if it had warmed, with our fridge, to room temperature in summer. The fact that we had so much food to save only reinforced our fortune.

The modern convenience whose generator had run its course also brought to mind dependence. I do not can. I freeze. My tiny garden has yet to yield the bulk of its bounty for the season. While I was digging through the thawing treasures in the freezer box, I found three bones filled with peanut butter banana ice cream. Zelda, realizing she had hit the treats jackpot decided she’d better save one for later. Within seconds, half my crop of ready-to-be-picked lettuce and two budding pepper plants disappeared into the dirt along with a bone.

Yet, how fortunate I was to have peppers and lettuce from the grocery store. Grown by someone else. How dependent I was. How interdependent we all are…

It can be an uncomfortable state to be in, this state of interdependence, but I’m not sure it has to be. The next morning I found myself in bed thinking about how the big can appear small and the small big, depending upon perspective. The Earth, from the scale of the universe, a mere dot orbiting a tiny sun that will eventually burn out, holding our all of our breath in check. And how very few of us will ever emerge out of its atmosphere to take in the vast expanse beyond our Earthly existence.

Back at the lake, I watched dragonflies emerge from their nymph stage of life. Ugly prehistoric brown bugs emerging into exquisite winged beings. Tiny dragons. Magic in corporeal form. And here I was, sitting at the edge of the womb of the lake, watching beauty being birthed. Watching, without seeing, the force of life propelling the push into existence.

Now available in print and Kindle!

Warriors of Light: The Labyrinth — The Labyrinth, now available on Amazon in print and Kindle.

It seems fitting that I am sitting looking out on Lake Merrymeeting while I write this post announcing the release of my newest book, The Labyrinth, Book 1 in the Warriors of Light series. Lake Merrymeeting holds a special place in my heart, as does the man who introduced it to me. I met the man when he was still a boy. We were both seventeen and spending six weeks of our summer at St. Paul’s School Advanced Studies Program (ASP). I was studying biology, and he, ecology, but our eyes were drawn together at a dorm meetup on the night of July 4th 1991. We were married eight years later on July 17th, the same day in July, many years later, I hit the release button for The Labyrinth.

Dave & Alethea. Circa 1991. Photo Credit: Arthur Kehas

Dave and I had our first date at St. Paul’s library four days after our we were introduced to each other by a mutual friend. While he reviewed my biology homework, I reviewed his English essay about his favorite place, Merrymeeting Lake. “Maybe you can go there with me someday,” he smiled shyly. Anything seemed possible that evening, but I never imagined I would be writing my own story one day inspired by this beautiful lake in New Hampshire.

Mystic Lake, aka Merrymeeting Lake, with the author’s fictional renditions. Map Design: Danielle English

I was thinking about the day I met Dave at the ice cream social when I wrote this passage:

When Dell’s eyes made their way to the front of the line, they stopped at a tall boy her age wearing a navy-blue baseball cap that covered most of his hair and shaded his forehead. He was paying for his cone, and as he turned away from the window Dell watched him lick his green ice cream, then lift his eyes to meet hers.

“What are you looking at?”

Her mother’s words broke the energy that held her gaze to the boy’s. In those few seconds, Dell had forgotten everything but the color of his eyes. They were like the flaming sun in a cloudless sky. They were like nothing she had ever seen before. (The Labyrinth, Chapter 2)

The shop that inspired the place in the book.

Dell was waiting in line at “The Bubble” when her eyes met those of the mysterious boy. A place inspired by an actual ice cream shop with a similar name in downtown Wolfeboro. It is popular with my children and many other summer residents. As the “oldest summer resort in America,” the town of Wolfeboro is rich with history. And that name seemed to want to be used, unchanged in the pages of my book… perhaps, in part, because of the character Lupe who likes to roam the hills around the lake in the body of a wolf…

A bit of a cynic, Lupe believes most people are driven by greed and a lust to be better than everyone else. He prefers the realm of night, when most people are asleep. In some ways he’s a sharp contrast to Dell, who is quite comfortable in the daytime and loves the water.

Is it Lupe Dell sees at The Bubble, or is it Shesha, who is quiet, mysterious. and brooding? Shesha lives on the north side of the lake, but doesn’t meet Dell until a magical labyrinth appears in a grove beside Mystic Lake.

or is it Ari who catches Dell’s gaze? Ari, who is best friends with a girl named Sula, who likes to read in the embrace of evergreens and prefers books over most people.

Each of the three boys has eyes that seem to see beyond the surface, but then again, so do the three girls…

Aponi is exceptionally beautiful, but she doesn’t seem to notice how she stands out. Instead, her focus is her mother, whose life is in danger. Aponi has known since she was a small child how intricately linked her mother’s body is to Earth’s, but she didn’t know she’d soon meet five friends destined, like her, to save them both…

These are the six warriors of light whose stories come together in a broken maze they follow in their dreams. It is a fictional fantasy, but also a metaphysical guide intended to help children of all ages embrace their gifts and a greater understanding of Life.

To order your copy of The Labyrinth in print or Kindle, please click here.