Paddle by

As I walk along the Alster, I enjoy the feeling of the sandy path under my feet. 

It’s a glorious day and the lake is busy with sailboats, stand-up paddlers and people in row boats and paddle boats. 

A woman lying close to the shoreline catches my eye. She appears to be sleeping. I can’t tell whether she's homeless, and I keep looking at her for clues to discern whether she is or not. I see she's wearing a chunky gold watch, but the watch might just be made out of metal. I still can’t tell.

I have a book with me and I begin reading it. Reading and walking is something I've gotten quite good at. However, I fail to see a big rock embedded partially in the ground in front of me. I stumble over it and decide to walk on the jogging path that is further from the shore and closer to the street. 

I’m reading the story “Big-Hearted River” by Ernest Hemingway. It’s basically a blow-by-blow account of a lone fishing trip taken by the protagonist, Nick Adams. The story fits the pensive mood I’m in, but I keep getting distracted from the reading. I must have read this same one line, “Down about two hundreds yards were three logs all the way across the stream,” at least four times already. 

I look to the water. It’s sparkling in the noon sun. There are so many stand-up paddlers going by. I wonder to myself: Do people who go stand-up paddling happen to have good bodies or do people with good bodies purposely go stand-up paddling? 

Eventually, I decide I've walked enough and I turn around. There is a vacant lot between two townhouses across the street. The lot can’t be more than 20 feet wide--it’s deep, I’ll admit it’s deep--but it can’t be more than 25 feet wide, and I wonder how much the land costs. Millions, it’s gotta be millions, I think, considering the neighborhood. 

I walk down to the path I had been on before, the sandy one, the one closer to the shore. There are people strolling along and fiddling with their phones, people walking their dogs, people hanging out on blankets. I see one woman laid out on a blanket wearing a bikini. She's glistening in the sun. Before I even reach her, I smell the coconutty aroma of the lotion she’s using.  

As I’m about to leave the area around the lake, I see that woman again, the one I thought might be homeless. I ask myself why I think she's homeless. Well, I reason, she’s lying down with no blanket. All the other people lying near the shoreline are on blankets. Also, she’s overly tan. It’s almost as if she spends too much time outside, always exposed to the elements or something. And the pose she’s in. It seems a little unnatural. While she doesn’t look dead or anything, she looks a little too “out,” like perhaps she had been drinking. Her clothes also aren’t perfectly suited to the weather. She’s dressed for cooler weather.