Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This is Forest Stories.
I am the Poet in the Forest, a children's series that I pinned
out in the nineteen nineties. Now, none of it would be possible if
it wasn't for this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I
talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's time that you get to
know what has inspired me for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of
the conversation. Welcome back to the forest. Is it Silver Lake or is
it Swan Lake? This lake right here inside this beautiful forest in South Charlotte,
North Carolina. One road that leads you right up to the lake says
it's Silver Lake, and then you have another road just a few feet up
and it says Swan Lake. It's a mystery. Is it two different families?
Is it two different journeys? When they created this area of the world,
did somebody just automatically name the lake? The lake itself is a very
lonely lake, and the reason why is because it's been pretty much labeled a
private lake. There's one owner, and from what I understand, that owner
paid a dollar for the lake because nobody else wanted to pay the insurance because
if they opened it up for swimming, well, you know how people are
when it comes to swimming. They don't swim safely. And nobody was going
to put a lifeguard out here. So the owner put up the signs all
the way around the lake has said no trespassing, so people don't use the
lake. Every now and then you might see a kayak out there or a
canoe of some sort. But I often wonder if the little blue house here
on this road, the owner goes out there and screams like an older woman,
going, get off my lake, Get out of here, you get
get But is it Silver lake or is it Swan Lake. I do know
that the water from my creek, that slow paced creek, makes its way
to that lake, and I do get to look at this lake from the
walks that I take from the angle high atop Heartbreak Hill to the angle that
I'm getting right now, which is deep into the forest right here in this
gigant stack of leaves, when it's only twenty four degrees. I was anxious
to see the lake today because being twenty four, has the lake frozen over?
Has it ever frozen over? And what I have the courage and the
confidence to grab my ice skates and do like we once stayed up in Montana
and skate across that lake. I'm not sure that lake would be nice to
me. I think it might reach out and capture me. But Silver Lake,
that's a pretty name to it, but I don't see any silver around
it. Swan Lake, I get the elegance of that, but I've never
seen a swan on the lake. A lot of blue hair and crane.
I've seen a lot of ducks and geese, but never a swan. Maybe
we should rename the lake. We do know that it is my dream,
my aspiration, my willingness as well as my passion that this private lake become
a place for writers and other creative people time in the future, probably long
after I'm gone. I would love for this one area of the world to
become a forced with a lake and a slow paced stream that feeds that lake.
And there's so many places inside this forest with no housing that a creative
mind can come and just feel the presence of whatever it is that's here.
Hey, thanks for listening to the conversation.