With our windows down, our expectations up, our swimsuits on, our bodies overheating, we were eager to feel the water.
Now this water is not just any old water, it can change from bone aching cold, to shiver refreshing, to huge waves of warm surface water coming to shore, each day it is as if new water arrives, and we so wanted the refreshing kind.
As we neared the Beach House, we watched the temps and they remained near what it was at our house. This could mean that all the surface water was escaping and all we would be left with is water so cold your legs would ache when you walked in up to your ankles.
I had been in a mail car without air conditioning, the temps were near 90 most of the day, and I so wanted to plunge into refreshing water, to submerse myself in cool clear waves lapping water!
As we drove in the driveway we spot two kids in the water, this is a good sign, although they handle the chilling water much better than older folk.
Taking that first step in and feeling it’s refreshing quality quickly erases the struggle with boxes and packages, eliminate the feeling of dying in the heat, overwhelmed by clothing and no air conditioning, all disappear the moment you walk deeper and deeper, plunging at last to be fully enveloped in its clear cool liquid, floating like air.
It carries you, cools you, cleans you, and resets your inner peace.
Once my inner core seemed to cool down, and I actually was shivering with goose bumps, I sat in the sun on the shore and pondered just how lucky am I?
The Beach House we have access to, just sits and waits for us to arrive. And in the past two years, due to cooler temps, kids schedules and work, we have not even opened it up and aired it out for summer fun.
It looks like a place that hasn’t seen much activity, or attention, the grass is cut, but in a hurry by someone who feels its work. Weeds grew on the pathway to the lake, where no feet trampled them down. Driftwood lay in piles where the ice and waves dropped them, not used for summer night fires.
There was no evidence of fun, of lazy days and relaxing chairs, no inner tubes tucked under the deck, it was like a ghost of the Beach House lay there.
Inside the sights and smells reminded me that no one had been here to open up, clean and then make meals to over lay the musty smell.
It was sad to see this house this way, with cobwebs, grit and grim from now two years of no one eagerly coming and enjoy days and nights away from life’s work routine.
I recalled the first years the kids so small and the chore it took to get us there, to now see them fully grown and sitting on the same porch, still laughing, still talking and being with each other, how the beach house gets left behind.
We do not own this beach house, it is Grandma’s, and even if we did, I am not sure it wouldn’t be in the same condition. When we were there for days on end, I could keep things up, but when we are not using it, it is harder to do. I am not sure it is even mine to worry about….an odd place to be in.
It is my beach house in my mind, a place that I have been grateful to use, a place to run to when the weather was too hot to bear, a place of refuge, a quiet spot, no phones, no connection to the real life.
I spent many weeks on end there when my world came crashing down, sitting by its shores being healed by sunrises and sunsets, swimming carelessly and floating on inner tubes, kids doing their own thing near by, free from the realities of life.
We have memories of wonderful times spent there and I hope someday we can afford to own it, to be its caretaker.
With gratitude and sadness I sat there, so grateful for all the years of use, 21 or so, for they were looking at beach houses when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter.
Grateful to have had the many years of swimming, relaxing and enjoying its wide porch, looking out to many morning sunrises, to see loons floating past, ducking and popping up, to feel the cooling breezes and lapping waves while we slept on the porch in a tent. What a great part of our history is there, the happy parts.
How thankful I am to have had its presence in our lives, how hopeful I am that someday I will once again get to be there all summer….
We never know what we carry with us and what we leave behind, and I guess I am being greedy to want more than what I already have had, I have had the best already.
A wonderful Beach House where my growing family could share hours and hours of summer fun.
Thank you Beach House. It is my hope that if it isn’t my grandchildren scrambling upon your shores, it is someone else, may you not be empty too long!
Beach Houses just wait for summer to hear the squeals of laughter and the running of feet, enjoying all it has to offer, may you come alive again soon! I almost feel responsible for your neglect, for allowing my children to grow up, I feel responsible for not having the time to spend there, yet I know that what I feel most is the tugging of memories and knowing how much I loved being there.
Maybe I am sadder than you, for my life is changing, kids are growing and the pace is quickening, maybe I see me in you.
If they can look back, like I look at you, I will be forever grateful. There is much more happiness when we think of you.
What a great way to live life, like a Beach House.
I M Perfect lady 