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power down
By heather | July 13, 2007
Today we went to the lake. In my family the lake is the only moniker needed – no explanation required. This is where I spent summers as a little kid, got to know my grandparents, spent late nights with my cousins, swam across, learned to fish and row a boat, and all the other things you take for granted when you have a place like this.
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| Lake Hiawatha |
Living in Virginia I haven’t been here since college. In fact the last weekend I was here was the same weekend Pricess Diana died because I remember watching it on the TV with the rabbit ears. My grandfather hasn’t been here since my grandmother died almost 15 years ago, but still asks about the place, and talks about it as if he were here only last week.
From the outside, it looks exactly the same save for more weeds. It never occured to me as a kid that someone had to maintain the property and that while I was having fun, somebody was doing all the things that as an adult stress me out – like cleaning and doing yard work.
Inside are all the signs of disrepair that start to show when a place doesn’t get much use – leaky roof, a damp old towel smell, plumbing that doesn’t work – all of which combine to bring out my OCD in full force.
As long as I stayed outside, I could maintain a sense of calm. Inside I felt a whirling panic inside my chest – at the unfamiliar smells, the darkness, the dirt, the divergence from what I remembered to what is. My grandmother, who I still miss terribly, was everywhere – I could almost see her standing at the sink or sitting in a lawn chair by the lake.
I could picture my grandfather in his work clothes striding across the gravel onto the next fix it task, and promising me that he swam around the lake every morning. Even though it was cold, Brett persuaded me to go out in the boat. We rowed out to the same float that’s been there for 20 years and waited to be warm enough to swim.
As soon as I dove in I was enveloped by the smell of the water – clean and earthy at the same time. I swam far out and looked at the sky and tried to remember a time when I didn’t struggle with anxiety and depression. When I think about it objectively I know that I don’t have near as much to be anxious about as some people but it would be great to recapture how it felt to be 12 with family close-by and nothing on the agenda.
I would give anything to be able to talk to my grandparents at the age I am now with the same candor and carelessness I had back then. I would love for them to meet my husband and baby. I definitely have land memory for this place, it’s a part of me more than I realized.
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