Water lapped up against the side of the boat. Rocking back and forth in the bone-chilling wind, my body tensed and my heart sung.

I had not been fishing in over 10 years. Yet here I was: freezing, casting, laughing, reeling and singing. Conversation flowed between sips of Labatts. My friend and I drifted. Occasionally wrestling with our oars on the beat-up, light blue rowboat.

Clouds above broke away after an hour revealing a bright blue sky with hints of a summer to come. The sun, now our beacon of warmth, cast light on the woods and water. We thought that its presence would welcome our aquatic rivals closer to the surface. We were dearly wrong. Two friends, two oars, one makeshift anchor, 30 worms, a broken fishing rod, four hours of wind and no fish was our excursion. An excursion of tranquility into a lake of nothing.

Have a Bright Spot to share? Send it to Managing Editor Julia Lerner (lernerj@denison.edu). Tell us about the moment that made you smile in under 200 words, and try to include a photograph. We’ll add it to our growing list of Bright Spots on TheReportingProject.org!