As long as I'm here...

We're going back to our lake house for Memorial Day weekend. School's out and I'm taking off a couple of days so we can spend some time up there and not feel rushed. My kids seem to like the place as much as I always have I'm glad to see. When I was little it was kind of an adventurous place surrounded by dark woods, tall hills, briars, snakes and God knows what unearthly creatures. The wampas cat was a favorite story of my uncle Jack's - a cat with a head at both ends and no anus, so it was really mean.

Nowadays, I like the quiet and sense of removal from the rest of the world. Even though it's a lot more crowded up there now than it was 25 years ago, it's still not crowded. There are more houses lining the banks but you can still only see a few of them from our place, and those only dimly through the trees. When we're up there we have no schedule and don't care what time it is. There are 3 channels on the tv, 2 of which don't come in very well, and a few radio stations that can be received.

When we get up in the morning the kids are usually out on the screened-in back deck playing quietly. The only sounds are birds, tree frogs and the occasional whine of a boat engine going past out in the channel. We'll leave the sliding door open to let in the cool morning air while Joy and I cook some breakfast, then call the kids in to sit around the old table and eat. We may go walking along the dirt road after we eat - Joy and I just enjoying being out and the kids seeing what interesting rocks they can find - then go swimming in the afternoon off of the dock below our house in the cove. At night we may let the kids roast marshmallows over a small fire in the back yard after dinner, then put them down when it starts getting dark. Joy and I will sit up for another hour or so on the deck watching the dark, listening to the cicadas and just being together.

There's something indescribable about that place that I wish I could convey to someone reading this. Even though the road is paved over halfway in now and graded the rest of the way, there;s still that feeling of being AWAY. It's like a pocket in time where the rest of the world is there, but on the other side of some kind of membrane that isolates it from you. I can think of few better places for decompression.