What was the name of that lake?

When I was a youngster I almost drowned. At least, that's what I'm told. At least that is what I've come believe and remember. Fairly vividly. Today I couldn't remember the name of the lake. I'll tell you what. Wouldn't it be interesting to write an analysis, an explication maybe, of an event in your own life? What rhetorical devices do you use in your own memories? In my version there is a lake and across it, far far across it is a family. And this is just a snap shot. An old grainy 70's looking snapshot of a family by a lake. And I am sitting in the center on top of a picnic bench with wet long brown hair and a blue towel wrapped around me and bare feet. I am looking right out across the lake biting my bottom lip but in an everyday mundane sort of way. I look to be about 4 or 5 in the picture. I can't remember the name of that lake and I can't remember how old I was. My dad and brother and sister are on my right, to the right of the picnic table and my dad is doing something with his hair, drying it maybe. And my brother and sister are half way attending to him like they are kind of freaked out but my brother is sort of mutely freaked out because that is how he is. My mom is to my left with her back to the camera and she is wearing an orangy rust colored downy looking puffy sort of jacket. We are all in the shade. The picnic table is green. I can't see it but I know my mom is smoking in the picture. The sky is blue and very bright and it is summer time but we are so high up in the mountains that it is very cold and that's why my mom has that coat on.

But none of this is real. This is just a picture I have in my head. The second image I have is looking up, under water, at the green seaweed floating around me and the bright sun and the kayak that I just fell out of. And I feel like I am frowning and I feel like I can't move and can't breath. The thing that astounds me about this is that I actually remember opening my eyes under the water when I fell in which makes me think that this might actually be a memory. Because I will never ever open my eyes under water now. I have never ever opened my eyes under water except with the aid of goggles and even then I hate it because the pressure makes me feel like my eyes are going to be sucked out of their sockets and sometimes little trickles of water get into the goggles. One time, I went scuba diving in a river bed in Florida with my dad and aunt and cousins and when we were done they were all saying did you see the sharks teeth and the whatever? And I pretended that I saw but I had my eyes closed most of the time. I only opened them when I felt I was drifting away from the group. Now that I am a grown up and can make my own decisions I rarely swim at all and never ever ever put my head under water. Not even in the bathtub. Every bath I take culminated with a shower so I can wash my hair.

These pictures will always be in my mind because I created them and cultivated them over years. But lots of life changing traumatic things have gone. And I can't even remember the name of the lake. It starts with an M. My dad would always say, "hey Mandy, how about we drive up to old Lake M_____?" Or, "I'm going to finish what I started in old lake M_____." It is a woman's name. And it sounds like Manzanita. Maybe it is Lake Manzanita. Forgetting the name of the lake is like forgetting the picture or forgetting the kayak. It is an intrinsic part of the story.

Anyway, the gist of it is, what was the name of that goddamned lake?????????

I think it is Lake Manzanita. Or Manzanita Lake.