I believe that vacation is a state of mind rather than a destination. For that reason it takes time to achieve that state, wherever you may have landed.
When we arrive at the pond there is chaos. Car doors slamming as everyone pulls bags from the hot backseats of cars, bags of groceries hurriedly pile onto the kitchen counter where someone takes the assignment of sorting and finding places for everything in unfamiliar cupboards.
A family steeped in tradition, there are puzzles to dump upside down on the dining room table so that all passersby can pause a moment and work a piece. Cards and board games need to be stacked on the table in front of the big windows overlooking the water, waiting for dark when we will pop our first batch of corn and begin the week-long tournaments.
By the time everyone claims a bedroom and unpacks, it is time for dinner and our first day is done.
At the head of the week’s stay, we feel the need to do the ‘firsts” of everything; the first canoe trip to check on the beaver dam, the first jump into the cold pond then floating. We lean our heads back into the water, our hair slicked smooth like otters, talking and laughing the afternoon away. We pile into the cars and make the first trip to Harry’s Hardware, a hardware store/cafe/bar where we all sit around small tables, choosing our favorite beers from the blackboard menu. There is a Sunday afternoon music session going on and we wave to friends sitting in. If the spirit moves us, we get up and dance. I swing Emerson around until I am too dizzy to continue. On the way back we stop for the first maple creemees. Even though we are eating soft maple ice cream, we all ask for maple crumbles on top- because you can’t have too much maple and it is what we do.
About day three I feel myself begin to unwind. I wake up each morning and my bathing suit is always my base layer. A good day at camp means you don’t change out of your bathing suit until you shower at night. I sit on the picnic table overlooking the pond, eat yogurt and watch my son Michael cast his line into the calm morning water.
The only thing I have to do after rinsing my bowl is to grab my book. I push open the screen door and see that Kate has found her spot and is deep in reading. Paul and I drag green wooden Adirondack chairs to the top of the lawn in the shade, and there we sit, reading, dozing, until more food calls.
One afternoon I pad across the long narrow wood-slatted bridge to the little swimming island, towel looped around my neck. I stop and lean over the water to see if I can find the catfish beds. I call out to the floaters to see if anyone knows the weather and each answers that they don’t have their phones. This is when I know vacation has begun.
As the days go by, time seems to slow incrementally. My life has split into two completely separate pieces. I stop making lists and thinking about have-tos and simply live. Clad continuously in bathing suit and bare feet, I live simply. And, for this brief moment, we all live under one roof again.
Given permission, my brain relaxes and becomes as clear as the water I gaze down into.
Saturday morning we reverse gears and pack up to leave, each of us going in different directions. We fill our bags, sweep the floors and empty the fridge, stalling the inevitable: but time has, quietly, sped back up.
I’m back in clothes. disliking the feeling of shoes on my feet. When the last bag has been jammed into the truck and Phil arrives to clean “our” camp for the next vacationers, we turn and face the end.
We all weep, hard, like the coming rains.
In the middle of it, with a shaky voice, I remind everyone that, like Christmas, if this magic happened all of the time it would never be as special. We nod with soggy faces, having trouble feeling much besides grief.
Paul and I have caravaned two cars to fit everything in so I am riding home alone. The moment I pull out of sight of the lake I feel the lists begin to form.
I head down to check on our bees. I go into the lower barn and pull my bee suit over my head.
Honey is a wonderful by-product but I’ve discovered that the reason I love bee keeping is because it requires me to find quiet at my core, much easier to achieve when reading beside the pond. As I stand outside the fence waiting to step in, I ask my vacation-brain to return. In my center, my calm mind helps find a place where I am ready and able to commune with another.
If only I could do that in my bathing suit.