Spending the 4th at the Lake

posted at 1:13 am
on Jul. 5, 2010

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The 1st was Canada Day and the 4th is Independence Day, but for me, it wasn’t about independence, it was a family week.  My sister Virginia graduated from university, as we all knew she would, just as we all know Haley’s comet is going to come back some day.

I’m at my dad’s cabin.  We sat around a deck-based campfire last night and shared old stories, him and I and the others here (Virginia and Aaron, Stacia and Justin; Susie was inside on the couch because her back is hurting).

It feels so good to be here it’s eerie.  Not SUPER good, but just the right amount of good, just a normal good, the kind that comes from one glass of Bailey’s after a burger after a day where I actually slept in, in a room that was so dark I couldn’t tell it was 11:15.

Dad’s got all grey hair (but so do I).  He straightens up a little slower, and his gut’s bigger than I remember, but so do I, and so have I.  His place is untidy, a lived in untidy, and dirty, a bachelor dirty where things that are used are all clean but things that aren’t have a layer of dust on them.  Dust on a lot of surfaces, but some really comfy couches aimed right at the TV.

He still makes a mean steak on the BBQ—and I’ve had steak for 5 of the past 7 meals, and I skipped the 6th meal (a breakfast).  He has a favorite chair, with a pillow with, oddly, little flowers on it behind his head, and he reads the newspaper every day, every word of it.  The classifieds, the engagement announcements—he shared a question at breakfast about one of the places one of the brides-to-be was working.

Computer with a fat monitor in the guest room, books stacked on books with the spines in every direction, two cats that he professes not to like very much, but who love him. The cabin has changed, but hasn’t changed, it’s full of things I know, exactly where I know they should be, even utensils and bandaids in the same spots.

The air and the lake are cold, colder than it should be on July 4th according to my memory; there’s no sun out like there ought to be.  Where is this year’s summer?  The place is wet and muddy, the water pours out of the pipes under the stone wall at the front of the property, draining into the lake the lawn’s accumulated water from the powerful short rain showers .

My sister Staci’s still kind of not speaking to me.  But when I hear her in the other room, laughing with Anna, her laugh reminds me of the bells you hear outside the mall at Christmas, high and tinkly, a promise of happiness for others.  She has a nice boyfriend, Justin, who is an excellent fishing guide and wood chopper and zombie killer and who looks like he likes her an awful lot.

As my sister V tweeted: It’s a surreal 4th of July weekend.  I feel sad for all the time I’ve missed being out of touch with my dad, and now, like snow melting under your boots as you walk a frozen path, it feels like the freeze just got lower and lower until suddenly you’re standing on firm ground and you wonder how there ever could have been enough ice and snow to cover an entire country.

There was a nice fire every night on the patio, and shared meals. The teepee needs to go up again, but for now, the platform got used by Justin’s LARGE tent.

I was there only 2.5 days, which was too short, but that’s a good thing.  Too short, means I want to go back, and he wants me to come back, and that’s as it should be with a visit home.

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