Stars in the Lake

I was taking a walk around my neighborhood lake and paused to engage the sensorial world.

Small ripples were cascading across its surface when the wind hit the lake. When the sun hit these ripples at a specific angle, it reflected as a shimmer back to my eye. A small burst of light lasting a brief moment before disappearing. Waves of water moving along their kinetic path, creating an intersection between the sun’s light and my line of vision. In real time, the lake glittered with flashing specks across its surface.

To me, they looked like stars—flashing in an instant, then disappearing again. For a moment, I became lost in the experience of witnessing stars ripple across the lake. It was like observing a micro-scale universe, collapsing its infinite timeline into two degrees above singularity. Each emerging glint signaled the birth of a star, and the disappearing instant, its death. I felt the brevity of time.

I stood there for a few minutes, engaging as a body receiving the sensations of the world. Appreciating how my eye can be touched by light, in the same millisecond that light touches water.