a.k.a. V.J.

A weird habit that I’ve adopted in the smartphone age is that pretty much any time I come across a nice-looking lake, I’ll take a picture of it. That keeps my camera busy since Upstate New York is very much a target-rich environment for nice-looking lakes. Ironically, one lake I don’t pay a lot of attention to is the one that is a stone’s throw from home: Fulton’s Lake Neatahwanta.

Neatahwanta, which in the Onondaga language means “little lake by the big lake,” gets a bad rap locally, as toxic algae and agricultural waste have rendered it polluted and dangerous. There are actually signs warning you not just to avoid swimming in it, but also to not let your pets go near it, as the water can kill small animals. So, like many aspects of this community, the lake became another tangible focus point for our collective municipal inferiority complex and negative self-talk.

But the truth is, even after the ecological damage that has been done to it, Lake Neatahwanta is lovely. It’s easy for me to overlook the beauty, since I see it so often during my comings and goings around town. Tonight, as I was driving to Walmart, I glanced out the window toward the lake and something about it just struck me. Maybe it was the hazy sky giving it a soft focus, like the camera settings they use to flatter aging movie stars. Maybe it was the ultra-calm surface, smooth like glass. Whatever it was, the lake this evening looked like something out of a painting, and I was inspired to pull over and grab a couple shots.