It Ain't Easy, nor Should It Be

Sometimes it is difficult to figure out where you're going when you're not sure where you've been. You are the substance of all your yesterdays wrapped up in your present, and who you'll be is the substance of all you are in the present moment. So this is eternity all wrapped up in every moment you live.

When I look at the lake I see both sky and water reflecting each other without end. When I look at myself in that lake I hope to be lost in the limitlessness of that reflection.

It isn't vanity. It is something beyond the narcissistic hope of love in reflection. I do not seek the Echo of my own voice, but I hope to hear the voice that moves between both water and sky. It is the voice between baptism and a dove's flight. It is the One that leads me on the narrow way.

Cryptic? Possibly, but my life has been a metaphor that I have yet to figure out. What do I represent? What is the moral to my story? Hmmm...until next time then.

There Is Something About July

I am not sure what it is about July but I think it is my favorite summer month on the Lake. Just as most other places, July starts out with a bang. July 4th is like the official kick off day of summer, even though school's been out since June.

In my family we would sometimes have a family picnic at my parent’s house with our Uncles and Aunts and Cousins. They would come over to enjoy the fireworks from our screened-in deck and it there wasn't a spectacular professional fireworks display put on as a city sponsored event (I didn't know those actually existed until I met my husband) that we could watch from the comfort of our home, but a local fireworks tradition, a neighborly, but all out war of who had the best and most fireworks.

Now in Minnesota, as it is in some other states, most forms of fireworks are illegal to the average Joe. There were just too many blown off hands to allow the goings on of unprofessional fireworks displays. Still, that didn't stop anyone on our lake from sneaking the best and the biggest from across the border, and I don't mean the Canadian border (we get drugs there but not our fireworks, as a matter of principal) no, instead we would get them from either Wisconsin or South Dakota.

When thinking about the lengths the neighbors and my Uncles went to achieve Firework Master Status I can see the true beauty of the annual war they had. It really was an homage to all 4th of July stood for. One simply did their best to last longer in their supply than any other on the lake. Hicks shoots off a fountain, Uncle Red shoots off a Johnny Jumper into the lake (which is spectacular to see), and across the lake the Jones shoot off stars and stripes. Back and forth they would take turns until last man standing.

As in all war children often get in the middle of the battle. Days after we were called upon to judge the best. We weren't always partial either to our families. In one way we declared our own winner regardless of who lasted the longest, but by the one who shot off the most of our favorites (mine were the fountains).

Despite our own declarations of who the winner was it would never be truly settled and year after year the battle continued. The battle ground has changed slightly, new neighbors take on the mantle of the long war, but always with the same ambition of former battles. Who will be the best?

At long last I want to mention the other things that make July my favorite summer month: Pontoons and fireflies. You may see them at other times, but July is when I most identify with them. As with the fireworks display on the 4th of July during the day people on the lake would decorate and take out their pontoons for a 4th of July parade. They would make a trip around the lake either playing music or honking their pontoon horn.

It is nice to think that parades don't have to be sponsored by the city, or a business to be called a parade. A neighborhood parade of the people, who you share a bit of your world with, your nearest neighbors, is all it takes to make the 4th of July special; or anytime special for that matter.

Lastly, in saying good bye to the month of July I will end with two things: first, fireflies. Fireflies are their own little firework. They flit around the tall grasses like little lanterns searching for love. They have a brief light in this world and last only for a small moment in time. They represent the brief summer of our life and youth, which flits by in a moment. They are wondrous little things that can transform your back yard into a haven of lights like stars. My dad would sometimes help me catch them and keep them in a jar with a twig and grass to eat, but their light would only last the night. Far too brief.

And just like the brief light of the firefly, our lives are brief. We are only flits of light in this world. My second thing speaks to that, people. Just like yesterday for me has gone out I have today to look forward to, yet, there are many in my life who are no longer able to be a part of this world. Their light has irrevocably gone out.

I want to say goodbye to July, but in saying goodbye to July I want to remember Jim Graff who passed away recently. I didn't know Jim well, but he seemed like someone who enjoyed July well. I honor him as I honor those in my family whose lights have gone out. Their lights were spectacular to behold!

Gossip of the Day

The road to my parents house is 1.7 miles from Hwy 33. I know because I have on several occasions walked end to end. We live pretty much right of nowhere and left of everywhere else.

The first curve in the road leads to your best view of Lake Charlotte; except now there are a few new houses blocking the visual grandeur. The Big Lake is what it is sometimes referred to by Lake Charlotters and the Bay is the other part (where my parents live).

When you first turn on our road, and on the other side of the road from Lake Charlotte there is Lake Martha. Poor Martha has had a Millweed problem for a long while now because the DNR don't pay much mind to her. Lake Charlotte is where it's at.

Now on several occasions I have walked down our road, or rode my bike the 1.7 miles and those times have been when I've stayed after for school (the bus only dropped us as far as the road), when I've visited my friend Cheryl, and when my cousins and I went trick-or-treating. I never minded the walk when we went trick-or-treating because we were always rewarded every few feet.

Now there is a steep hill on the other side of the triangle where my parents house is located. Following that hill there is another even steeper hill that is nearly impossible to drive on in a really bad snow storm. The houses at the bottom of the hill were never really generous with candy and it wasn't until the top of the hill where there was anything very promising.

I remember Mr. and Mrs. Lockheader because of the excellent choices of candy they would hand out, usually my favorite of 3Musketeers. Most often they gave a choice of three. They had a blue glass bowl that sat in the entry way of their really nice house (You could see the sun setting over the lake from the far window).

It seemed like it was usually Mr. Lockheader that handed out the candy, but sometimes it was Mrs. Lockheader. I don't think they ever had children, so I imagine this was a treat for them to see us kids getting candy.

That's how I remember them, the Lockheaders, good candy people. That's the way I should remember them, but the last time I came home and I saw Lake Charlotte peaking through the new houses on the corner in the road I thought of how much has changed around the lake. When I got to the hill of the Lockheaders' home it was for sale. I was surprised they decided to move.

"Mom, did you know that the Lockheader's house is for sale?" I said.

"Yeah, they can't sell either, not since the murder."

Shocked! Anyone would be when something like this is brought into the home of their childhood sanctuary. The only death I remember on Lake Charlotte was a man who drowned one summer on the Big lake from too much alcohol.

"It was all over the news" my Dad said.

"I don't get your news though." I said.

My Mom was so matter-of-fact when she said "I guess the Lockheaders were swingers. They got a divorce I guess, but Mr Lockheader and one of the other couples still hung around together, but the wife decided she liked Mr Lockheader better and wanted a divorce."

My Dad continued "The husband shot his wife, drove out here and shot Dick. Then he went back and shot himself. He lives all the way in Burnsville, or something like that."

My Dad took a drag on his cigarette when he finished and said "I'm going out to feed the birds."

"Did you hear the shot?" You could hear things quite clear on the lake at night. It was like the water echoing back the day to you, telling you secrets you missed during the noise of the day. My parents must have heard this one.

"Didn't know about it until we saw it on the news. We were at the nursing home with Grandma when it happened." She said, "Do you want something to eat?"

*This is based on a true account of something that happened recently on Lake Charlotte, but I have fictionalized enough to make it gossip.

A Rock For All Times

I'm not sure when I learned to swim underwater, but I didn't learn to swim on the surface until I was seven at the Buffalo Recreation Center (go figure). It might have to do with the fact that swimming under water was more fascinating. I see everything above the water's surface all of the time, but it's what's below the surface that I only would get a few minutes at a time.

Maybe I was a fish in a former life. Well if you know me, I'm really a fish in this life. I'm a Pisces; I'm two fish swimming in opposite directions. Not easy to do!

My parents have several memories of me swimming that I don't have, which is not because I didn't do them, but because I was too young to really claim them as my own. They remember the fist time I sat on Stephie's rock. It was the place I could sit in the water and watch our world go by.

Then there is the memory of me running down to the lake with nothing but my own gift from God, my clothes were rumpled and cast aside in my sand box, and I ran right to my sitting rock (I called it the sitting rock and my parents called it Stephie's rock). From that point on I was know as Streaker.

Don't worry; those were my young care free days. Now I like to keep my clothes on as a sense of duty to the occasional passerby.

The "sitting rock" is still there in front of my parent’s house. It stands as a true cornerstone to my early days. Sitting there on the rock with half of myself in the water and the other half above, I was the yin and yang of two fish in opposite directions, a solid but mutable girl. I could change and move like water, be shaped like water over my rock that smoothes out the rough edges, yet I could be as fixed as ice and as stationary as the rock I stood on when it comes to love.

Intermission

I've been on a short break. More of Lake Charlotte coming soon! Hang on to your paddles.

The Threshold

The lake was the beginning of my parents. Their decision to have me was reflected in the moment of their meeting. All it took for my parents was my mother's baptism in Lake Charlotte.

My Grandmother, Ingrid, moved our house all the way from Minneapolis to the bayside location of Lake Charlotte. She wouldn't live there long, because my father, once he found my mother, bought it from her.

The house was built on a foundation that is one brick short from a full basement. That might mean something, though I have never figured out what that might be.

On the day in question, my mother was helping paint Grandma Ingrid's house with her best friend Lilly and my Grandma Dolly. Their hair was unnaturally blonde like the rays of the sun got caught in the net of their hair. My Dad came over to see his mother and he found Dena.

Maybe it was love at first site, but the arrow to my dad's heart was my mom's smart mouth. She said some comment to him and he threw her into the lake. She was baptised into her new life from that moment. He turned around to his friend and said "I'm going to marry that girl."

Eventually my dad bought the place from my grandmother, and since he already, in his way, threw my mom over the threshold, or shoreline if you will it would be the place I would know my whole childhood.

Grandma Ingrid's Fox Trot

Grandma Ingrid taught me how to Fox Trot. She had an organ in her 1920's all-white sitting room. She used to play all sorts of music for us, but the Fox Trot was her favorite. Sometimes we would dance to the Laurence Welk show bands. She remembered all the moves.

I never saw Grandma in anything other than high heel shoes; the break your neck kind. She would dance in them better than anyone I knew. She even had a pair that were clear like glass slippers; I wonder if a prince gave them to her.

"Stephie" she said one time, "I used to dance at this place in Arizona called the Toad Bar. I really know how to shake it." She paused as she grabbed my hands and we twisted on the spot.

"Sometimes they would ask me to play a fast Fox Trot on the organ. I was the only one who could play fast enough without making any mistakes." She told me this as she sat down at the organ and began to play.

I was in awe as I watched her fingers move over the keys as fast as her feet could in any dance (even despite the high heels). She laughed as she played. This was the happiest I ever saw Grandma Ingrid.

She played and sang for me songs from her memories and I wonder if, as the sun set over Lake Charlotte, if others could hear her playing? Would they know how happy she was? Were they happy to hear her play, or was the music like a ghost over the water?

"Grandma, show me how to play like you?"

She helped me on the seat and let my fingers repeat the notes she played, but I was never that fast. Her fingers would soon take over and loose themselves in the song.

Once she finished playing and with a fading smile she said "I never learned how to read music. Just like your dad I can only play by ear."

I remember her sitting there at the organ and she looked eternal. She was a perfect preservation of former happiness; but the sun was setting behind her and the light was fading from the window. The white furniture in the room was blushing from the final pink light of the sun.

My mom came up stairs, "Stephanie, get your things. It's time to go home."

Grandma got up from the organ and the moment was forgotten. She walked us out to the car with a wave goodbye and a warning to watch out for the dip in the road. "It might be washed out from the rain this afternoon" She said.

The silence left by the organ was replaced by the endless bullfrog croaks. It was mating season for the bullfrogs. They were doing their own Fox Trot.

Swimsuit

I lived on a lake, it has defined me. From swimming with the fish under the rippling glass surface, to collecting frogs for a nickel a piece; I put them in a plastic ice cream pail. The lake washes over my life and changes me like waves over rock, smoothing me over.

I played bridge troll with my cousins at Grandma Ingrid's. We would take turns being the troll. My cousin Brian made a great troll. I was always scared to cross when it was his turn to attack us. Still, I was always just fast enough.

Grandma Ingrid liked me okay for a stranger, but I knew she thought something was odd when I wouldn't wear the washcloths pinned into a bathing suit (my Dad had forgot mine at home). "In the Great Depression they didn't have swimsuits" my Grandma would lecture me. It might be true I thought, but at four it didn't mean much to me.

At four I had a sense of pride. I knew right where my swimsuit was in my bedroom. There was only a lake between us. My dad could take the pontoon over and bring it right back, which he eventually did.

My cousin Annie and her friends were swimming. The rule was I had to swim with someone, or I couldn't go. I finally had MY swimsuit on and I started to run toward the lake just as my cousin and her friends decided they were done swimming.

I stood there in my brown two piece swimsuit, my feet were in water with murk and mud swirling around them. The lake was a true stars and stripe blue color. The murk settled as I stood there. No adults, so I couldn't swim. Instead I just stood there with tears like tadpoles plopping in the water.