Recently, spending the long Fourth of July holiday weekend on the lake in Michigan I couldn't help being acutely aware of how beautiful the water and sandy beaches were. Cooling off in the lake, wading, floating, going all the way under...I relished in the cool, crisp, clean liquid. I felt nostalgic for an innocent childhood of my sisters and I shampooing our hair off the dock or taking a bar of soap out for a chilly end-of-long-summer-day bathing dip, on family vacation or friend's cottages at various northern Michigan lakes. Early childhood summers were spent at a little resort by the name of Ernie's Cottages in East Tawas on Lake Huron. Teenage summers were kicked off by a week with my family each year on Lake Michigan (the beaches often compared to the Gulf Coast) at a quaint family resort called Sleepy Hollow in South Haven. Yes, legend has it Ichabod Crane's ghost still resides here. It was a little like the Dirty Dancing resort sans Patrick Swayzee, and Johnny Depp for that matter. But the stand-ins were just as exciting to us.
I went back to this lakeside resort many years later with my husband to try to rekindle that fun, free, relaxing feeling, as well as the spark in the marriage. None of which occured and the old resort was weathered and desolate in the off-season, much like our relationship had become. I wanted to be that teenage girl again, though shy, she was confident, smart, imaginative, and knew what she wanted. I wanted to be with my best friend again, getting into trouble or putting on makeshift talent shows. It didn't feel like the same place anymore. I felt sad and disappointed. Then, there were bonfires on the beach, first crushes, first drunk, so many dreams, usually along with a friend I was allowed to bring. We all did, my sisters brought friends too. We took tanning very seriously in those days. Somehow we didn't get sunburns, not that I remember. If we did, it was the cute Coppertone-girl-with-the-puppy-kind and we were brown as berries by week's end.
Later, my parents bought the cottage in Port Austin, on Lake Huron, at the tip of the thumb as we say, and that's where most of the summer lake visits have taken place since. The old cottage on the trail is now gone though and they live in a condominium subdivision up there, embracing their golden years with other seniors, retirees, golfers, and the close-knit farming community at large. Actually, I haven't spent much time up there in the last few years and came to snub visits there as not real 'up north' vacations. Since my dad's cancer came back this year and the chemotherapy isn't working anymore, I decided I was going to spend more time up there with my parents this summer and I have. I realized this weekend that I've really been missing out on the beauty of this area. I even enjoyed the long cornfield stretches of the drive in a new way that felt like I was visiting for the first time.
But seeing the horrible images on tv of the Gulf oil disaster, a new appreciation was born for our clean, beautiful lakes and beaches in Michigan. I prayed we don't destroy them as I thought, remember this moment in time, the peace it brought, the smell of the clean water and the feeling of the warm sand. I felt my childhood come back to me and I felt happy. I went home from the beach and had ice cream with my dad, knowing I'm able to appreciate what I have now. I feel so sad for the humans and wildlife in the Gulf Coast and the only way I know how to honor the pain they are enduring is to learn this lesson and do my part to protect the environment and appreciate life. We really are lucky to have these lakes, lets keep them this way. Our dads will be proud.
I went back to this lakeside resort many years later with my husband to try to rekindle that fun, free, relaxing feeling, as well as the spark in the marriage. None of which occured and the old resort was weathered and desolate in the off-season, much like our relationship had become. I wanted to be that teenage girl again, though shy, she was confident, smart, imaginative, and knew what she wanted. I wanted to be with my best friend again, getting into trouble or putting on makeshift talent shows. It didn't feel like the same place anymore. I felt sad and disappointed. Then, there were bonfires on the beach, first crushes, first drunk, so many dreams, usually along with a friend I was allowed to bring. We all did, my sisters brought friends too. We took tanning very seriously in those days. Somehow we didn't get sunburns, not that I remember. If we did, it was the cute Coppertone-girl-with-the-puppy-kind and we were brown as berries by week's end.
Later, my parents bought the cottage in Port Austin, on Lake Huron, at the tip of the thumb as we say, and that's where most of the summer lake visits have taken place since. The old cottage on the trail is now gone though and they live in a condominium subdivision up there, embracing their golden years with other seniors, retirees, golfers, and the close-knit farming community at large. Actually, I haven't spent much time up there in the last few years and came to snub visits there as not real 'up north' vacations. Since my dad's cancer came back this year and the chemotherapy isn't working anymore, I decided I was going to spend more time up there with my parents this summer and I have. I realized this weekend that I've really been missing out on the beauty of this area. I even enjoyed the long cornfield stretches of the drive in a new way that felt like I was visiting for the first time.
But seeing the horrible images on tv of the Gulf oil disaster, a new appreciation was born for our clean, beautiful lakes and beaches in Michigan. I prayed we don't destroy them as I thought, remember this moment in time, the peace it brought, the smell of the clean water and the feeling of the warm sand. I felt my childhood come back to me and I felt happy. I went home from the beach and had ice cream with my dad, knowing I'm able to appreciate what I have now. I feel so sad for the humans and wildlife in the Gulf Coast and the only way I know how to honor the pain they are enduring is to learn this lesson and do my part to protect the environment and appreciate life. We really are lucky to have these lakes, lets keep them this way. Our dads will be proud.
