Counting Years in Summers

Today we finished hanging pictures to create The Story Wall.  I provided inspiration and layout, and my husband supplied tools, mathematical know-how, and brute hammer-labor.  Together we got the job done.

The Story Wall tells the account of our summer lake life in picture form.  If this wall could verbalize, it would say something like this:

Once upon a time, a little girl and little boy spent their summers on the edge of a lake – one at a cottage on the south shore, the other on the west. They didn’t know each other in those days, but shared many similar foundational experiences, including the wearing of pudgy orange lifejackets.

They met as teenagers and spent sun-splashed days and dreamy nights on the water. Their love for the lake became a common bond that drew them together until they married.

The couple raised their four children to become “lakies” too.  Even as busy teens and young adults, the kids joined their parents whenever possible, fostering traditional love of the lake.

There came a time when family properties were no longer available, and the parents and children spent their last night in the log cabin on the south side before moving (that same week!) to property on another lake.  Then grandkids started showing up – one, two, three…until there were ten, and still more coming. 

This is a story of hope and love, of growth and maturing in the context of waves and sun.  It is a story with an ongoing legacy, a tale of life that “counts its years in summers.”

* * * * *

I count my years in summers -

Not that the other seasons are without recollections of their own,

Peaks and depressions in the landscape of one’s self.

But summer alone has always seemed the most vivid of seasons,

A refreshing, rich stop in the long year,

The time of greatest possibilities and promises.

And the fact that the promises of each summer are not kept

Leaves me with undiminished hope for the next one.

-excerpt from Life magazine, mid-1960’s

Test Kitchen

I seem to thrive on kitchen experimentation like some crazy inventor (think Doc Emmet Brown only with food instead of time machines).  Another way to say this is that when fixing dinner, I wing it most of the time. 

My current cooking efforts are unconventional with a healthy twist, but I still want them to appeal to the manly-man appetite that shows up repeatedly at my table every day.  Sugar-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, white-potato-free, and a host of other restrictions from his cardiologist guide and challenge me to come up with some wacky, but delicious, concoctions.

Some people say, “Well, what do you eat?  What’s left?”  I’ll tell you.  Plenty of real food.

Several people have requested written recipes (my husband talks a lot about his yummy heart-healthy food, and news spreads), so I’ve started a notebook where I record whatever I make each night for dinner.  It’s a fun project.

Tonight’s unorthodox meal offered components similar to a “fish ‘n chips” dinner: baked polluck filets covered with almond breading and served with tartar sauce made from homemade mayonnaise.  And turnip fries.  Yes.  I said turnip.  Fries.

Steamed green beans topped with toasted onion rings and browned almond flour and flax seed were actually better than the traditional Thanksgiving green bean casserole.  We agreed – who needs that gloppy canned mushroom soup when you can have this?

Another side of sautéed onions and baby bella mushrooms, tossed together with steamed spinach, complimented the rest nicely.  Salad was simple: sliced tomatoes with dollops of more homemade mayonnaise and a hefty grind of pepper.

But that’s not all…dessert!  Cherry crisp, made without grains (no wheat or oats) or refined sugar, but rather quinoa flakes (quinoa is a seed rather than a grain), almond flour, honey and stevia!

The farther we get into this lifestyle change the more I think we’re on to something big.  Why is it we look forward to new culinary delights made with very little processed or packaged food, and feel so much better at the end of a meal than we used to?  Satisfied but not heavy or dull-in-the-head?  Why are we able to get-up-and-go at this late stage of life? 

I’ll tell you why, or at least one reason.  Physical wellness begins at the cellular level.  The health of individual cells defines the health of body parts, and eventually entire systems.  We’re noticing positive effects because our cells are gobbling up good stuff.  They’re being served nutrient-dense foods, and are therefore happier and more functional than they’ve been in a long while.

She Listens

I wonder how often we hear each other’s hearts, those deep soul-voices that transcend spoken communication?  Bonded friends who invite disclosure, and listen with their whole selves, are priceless.  Heart-to-heart.  I am blessed with such a friend.

Listening is often the most we can do for another because it says, “What matters to you also matters to me.”  However, instead of listening we often hurry a response, and sometimes even interrupt and force our voice over another’s.  We’re so wrapped up in our own thoughts that it is almost impossible to listen well and with depth.  We want to be heard, and then to help fix everyone else.  This is unfortunate, not to mention wrong.

Even sincere advice intended to remediate a problem can fall flat, especially if forced or hurried.   It’s harsh, like a slap of plywood falling on concrete, and can shut down openness in a split second. On the other hand, love listens hard and long to the other person before it speaks.  It takes time to hear the terrain of the true heart first, and when the time is right, to speak gently with wisdom in an encouraging, rather than prescriptive, way. 

Of course it’s not easy or automatic to hear the subtle nuances of another person’s heart.  Bits and pieces commonly show up over time in inflection and intonation, body language and gesture, eye contact and plain old chemistry.  It takes practice.  For my friend however, who happens to be blind, listening gut-level seems almost intuitive.  Perhaps she is not distracted by visual cues and so can more easily focus, but I think it’s more than that.  She’s decided this is the way she wants to live, with God’s help.

“I can see how your dreams are pulled in that direction.  Keep open to prayerful answers,” she said in her email today.  She’d heard me in an earlier message – listened to my heart and affirmed it with practiced sensitivity, then released it to soar and trust God's plan.  This is empowering friendship.  I am grateful, and hope to be the same kind of friend to her.

The Finds of the Day

We were knee-deep all afternoon, handling, sorting, purging, and organizing old stuff.  It was sweaty, dirty work.

The Lake Association Garage Sale is next Saturday, and we set aside quite of few items to donate: a distiller, clothesline and pins, oil lamps, paint, various items of clothing, boat wax, fishing poles and fish basket, tools, games, books, floor tiles, flower pots, and more.  Lots more.

The biggest “finds” of the day were two very small pairs of ice skates.  The larger pair, black with single blades - and the smaller pair, white with red trim and double  blades - were antiques.  When I saw them my memory rolled back and back to a time when we purchased these for our two firstborn children.  They were probably around 5 or 6-ish, and 2 or 3-ish then. They are 41 and 38 now.

The miniature skates were hiding in the bottom of a big tub full of several baseballs, one soccer ball and a couple of basketballs.  Who knows how long they’d been there, flattened and unseen.  At the moment of discovery I felt like an archeologist on a dig who had stumbled across a couple of treasures, rotten laces and all.  It was delightful.

These are not going to the sale – we’ll keep them for grandkids next winter.

Lesson Learned

Practiced wants become desires; practiced desires become visions that can linger for months or years.  Such visionary fantasies can be persistent even when built on the shifting sands of what-ifs and if-onlys when real life doesn’t match up.

It’s possible for a long-standing vision’s cork to suddenly pop, for it to erupt into the realm of possibility with celebratory fizz.  Flags flutter and fireworks explode overhead. Woohoo!  Could it be?  Really?

Then cold, hard reality sinks in.  The vision-turned-possibility takes money to become an actuality.  More money than long ago when it first seemed attractive.  Much more.  So much money that acquisition would be foolish to even consider.

This was what happened to me today.  The surprise party was raided (and the figurative champagne confiscated) almost as soon as it began.

I’ve been pondering my reaction, remembering something my mother-in-law said years ago.  She was a woman of fine taste who appreciated quality possessions and experiences.  “Getting isn’t the big deal.  Wanting and hoping are, because dreaming is always the best part.”

And so I tell myself to keep dreaming – that it is the best part because I am already content with who I am, what I have, and the life I’m living.  In that case, I’m truly free to dream for the sake of dreaming, without the sting of disappointment.

Bucky's Back

A grizzly old fella rode home with us a couple of days ago after hanging out in my son’s pole barn for the last nine years.  He was a bit bedraggled, but cleaned up fairly well. Now he hangs on the wall in our storage room next to a rack of rifles.

One long-ago day, deep in a Canadian forest, my dad followed Bucky visually through his gun site.  Taking careful aim, he pulled the trigger and shot the buck in the neck. 

Not long after, he drove into our driveway with his trophy deer tied to the top of our station wagon.  I remember watching from the porch, wondering if the animal was really dead or just pretending to be asleep.  Soon Bucky's head went to the taxidermist and his flesh to our chest freezer.  I was probably around six years old at the time (circa 1955).  This all seemed surreal to me.

Bucky was exhibited above the fireplace mantel in our rustic log cabin at the lake.  As a child, I repeatedly pulled a chair onto the hearth so I could climb up and stroke his soft neck, especially the rough spot where the bullet entered.  The only picture I have of him in this original setting (minus his antlers) was taken when I was a teenager.  Friends and I had braved the lake for a very early morning ski run at dawn, and we came back to the cottage to sit by the fire and enjoy my mom’s waffles and bacon.

Bucky has become legendary here in his new location beside another lake. He is mine now, split and peeling nose and all - a treasure, if only because his story mingles with my own to communicate something about the passing of time and the mystery of life.

The Close-Out

Two orange orioles are feeding at our jelly feeders this morning, gobbling their fruity breakfasts with gusto.  Air currents simultaneously sweep across the lake, fluttering broad hosta leaves in a ruffly dance beneath the feasting birds.  The day is unfolding beautifully.  Predictably.  I love it here.

We’re preparing to leave this idyllic spot this morning and return to The Old Home Town.  This trip will mark the final turning of a page, a closing out.  Leaving has been a process spanning quite a few years, but this juncture marks a final, ultimate parting.

Our son’s house has sold, and we’re planning to help him purge it in preparation for the new owners.  He has already moved far, far away, and so will also be saying a final good-bye to his old life. There will be nothing of him, nothing of his, left in that town.  There will be nothing of us, nothing of ours, left either.  Just recollections spanning three decades. Rich memories.

And so we will drive the very-familiar highway between here and there, and feel the town wrap around us with its warm familiarity and Midwestern friendliness.  We’ll sink in one last time and belong again. Then we will return here – to the orioles, the sun-struck lake, and the wind’s pleasant sighs - and resume living.