Summer

I have written about Caroga Lake many times before.  I write about it when I’m here, when I miss a summer, and when I am asked to write about a favorite memory.  Sitting here at camp, there is no better topic.

View from the porch

"Did you know it would be like this?  Is this what you envisioned when you bought the place?  Did you know we would love it so much?"

There are few places in my memory that are so engrained as this one; few places with as much tradition.  Like a liturgy: you sleep there, I sleep here, this is where we have breakfast, this is where we toast marshmallows.

The paint is peeling.  Peeling in straight geometric lines that indicate lead paint.  Some people might call it a death trap, I call it camp.  Everything squeaks and creaks, if you need something in the kitchen you better look through every drawer, don’t use anything in the medicine cabinet - it’s probably been out of date for at least 10 years, the oven is quirky - don’t trust the temperature reading, the faucet is lake water - don’t drink it.   A realtor would describe it as ‘charming’.

The breeze is beautiful, the air smells wonderful, of pine needles and mountains.  The birdsong is clearer, the water bluer.   

Breakfast Hair

Great Grandpa Carnrite,

When you bought Ja-Mari-Ette 5 generations ago, did you know it would be like this?  Did you know we would cry the summers we missed?  That it wasn’t really summer without time at camp.  Did you know that we would do our best to get here every year even for just a weekend?  Or a night?  Did you know your great, great, granddaughters would be swimming off the same beach where your children swam?  

"Swimming"

Aunt Marion kept talking about selling the place.  When I was in high school it seemed a very real possibility.  I cried about it.  Now I realize she would never have sold camp, she never could have sold it.  Camp is a gift.  Great, Grandpa Carnrite might not ever have known me, but he knew I might happen, and that’s why he bought the place.  

Camp will eventually be sold.  I know this.  My adult mind knows this.  But until that moment when I actually do have to let go, I will not loosen my grip.  One day it will happen, another family will be here.  Or the place will be torn down (more likely).  Caroga Lake summers will end.  

But right now, I’m sharing it with my daughter.

First Morning at Caroga

What topic do you return to again and again in your writing?

Headless Angel

Every year I have amazing plans to decorate for Christmas.  The December issues of Better Homes and Gardens and Real Simple add fuel to the fire.  Dancing sugar plums are replaced with table centerpieces, garlands, and homemade wreaths in my head.  A stocking for my daughter, maybe a new one for my husband (the one I made for our first Christmas really isn’t that great).  Oh and I could make an ornament for my daughter every year, then when she’s eighteen she can have her set of ornaments.  Mid-November I am all ideas, mid-December I am scrambling.  So this year, once again, I am left with a headless angel.  

I didn’t plan on a headless angel.  The tree needed a topper and those at the store are typically gaudy or frothy or too “country”.  I figured I could make one.  I had already bought felt to make ornaments for my sister who put “unique” ornaments on her Christmas list (what’s more unique than homemade?).  I found an angel template by Martha Stewart (going to the craft queen herself) and after some finagling had two felt angels cut.  I glued and sewed the pieces together, carefully cutting out bits of the red.  Then...I stuck it on the tree, headless.  

I did look for something to make a head with, but nothing I had was quite right.  So, telling myself I was just testing it to see if it looked right, I stuck it on the tree.  And that’s where it stayed.  I glanced at it while completing the trio of owls for my sister.  

And again while making felt pom-pom balls. (Thanks to cake. for the tutorial.)

My husband and I exchanged gifts last night, under a headless angel.  This morning we packed up the car to spend Christmas in Pennsylvania.  Leaving behind the angel and a number of incomplete decorations still in my work basket.  Oh, and no stocking for my daughter.  Maybe next year I'll start in July.