Remembering Most Obsessively

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it the hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.

Joan Didion

I've been thinking a lot about the cottage lately. I tend to do that rather often when the temperatures drop into single digits and the ground turns white. In another six months I will be back up north, painting on my porch, swimming every day in the lake. For now, I look back on other times.

My mom (front left) and her sisters at the lake. c. 1929/1930.

The Didion quote touches me because it hits, so spot on, how I feel about the cottages up north -- and when I say cottages, I mean both the one I live in now and the one down the road in which my cousins live, where I grew up in my younger summers and where my mother and her sisters spent time every summer from the time they were children.

Mom (front left) with her sisters and neighbor kids on the beach.)

My grandfather bought the family cottage in 1923. It will be 100 years this summer of our family spending chunks of the summer in Michigan's north. Over the years the town has changed, going "faux Alpine," and there are now paved roads on the paths where my mother and her sisters used to walk along a two-track road to meet my grandfather when he came north for the weekend. Power boats have replaced rowboats and it's a lot louder.

The X and line on this postcard written by my grandmother points to the cottage.

But there are wonderful moments then and now and I do remember them obsessively -- both those of the old cottage and those of the new. I recall those early days (just barely) when my cousin David and I were little, in awe of the fish my dad would catch.

Then along came his sisters. Sand pies "served" on the break wall, early unsuccessful attempts (and later successful ones) at water skiing. Walking to the swamp and catching tadpoles. Meals at the long dining table in the old cottage. Long days swimming in the clean Otsego Lake water and playing on the beach. We had few rules (play nice, respect the water) and for me, I had -- for a short time, at least -- a "brother" and two sisters.

When I was 13, my parents bought a cottage down the road, the one we have today. It was there that the four of us kids would spend hours on the dock fishing (and later, as many hours baking on beach towels in the sun.)

It's the place where I most often think of my dad. I don't know how many hours he pulled the four us on water skis, but it was plenty. And for all those hours, there were more spent fishing.

We, of course, were the beneficiaries of his success! My mom was quite expert in baking a big bass!

We were back and forth between the cottages every day all summer, staying north with our moms while the dads came on weekends and vacations. 

There are many specific memories I hold... visits from friends...

... card games on the porch that lasted well into the evening ...

... and then there was the year I dropped my cousin's diamond ring in the lake. (Let me rephrase that. "Drop" implies intention. I was holding it for her on my finger when it slipped off into the water when I threw her the ski rope.) After bringing in divers to search the area (I personally think they found it), we started pumping out the lake, with a screen frame with a tarp beneath. I think she still holds a grudge. I certainly still feel the guilt!

We drew quite a crowd, pawing through the debris for a bright shiny object.

 My original s cottage has seen new generations experience the lake. My cousins brought their children north for vacations...

...where they dug in the sand and played in the water, as we did long before.

Now, the next generation -- the fourth generation of our family -- is experiencing summer days at the lake.

And, I'm sharing my spot, too. And those are moments I treasure.

From one beloved place...

.... to another....

From sunsets ...

 ... to storm clouds...

This is the place of my heart.

 Let the countdown to summer begin.

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