Now, Then and the Future

We stepped out of the car and smelled the lush, damp forest around us in the dark, and the lake just below the hill. We had been driving for hours north from the Minneapolis airport with two small, sleepy children. Stepping into a lighted room full of people, however, Hamish (from Yorkshire) met Emmalia (from Omaha) and   immediately determined that they were each five years old! In moments, the younger kids were tearing around the rooms, pulling out their dinosaur books to show off and the origami paper frogs which could jump, while the grownups greeted each other.

Going to bed that night, I was overwhelmed with thoughts of my parents, who, with limited means and inheritances, had secured this lakefront property for our family over a period of many years. How proud they would have been of this gathering of progeny and partners so many years after their deaths.

I was four or five myself when I first stayed on the southern shore of this lake. I have an intense memory of surprise that my mother went out to the creek, which rushed by the cabin and down the hill in early spring, to get the milk and butter she had stored there. They must not have been worried about bears at the time. It was at least ten years later that we acquired an interest in a cabin nearby and began to spend summers there.

Once, when Dad had to go home to Iowa for a funeral, my sister and I heroically rode our old blue bikes on gravel roads five miles to the nearest little store because we had run out of milk. On the way back, the carton leaked and we didn’t know what to do. I think we got most of it back to Mother and our five siblings intact.

The foundations of that cabin had begun to crumble and damp taken over the downstairs rooms when, in about 2007, my sister and her husband used new technologies to build a year-round log home on the site, with enough space nearby to make a large family gathering possible.

Our losses were keenly felt this summer, three of my sisters. But evidence of them was everywhere. “The past is never dead,” wrote Faulkner. “It isn’t even past.” After years of speculation, the place finally acquired a name this year. It was decided to call it Twin Pines, after the two white pines at the edge of the property, planted (among many other trees) by my Dad. They are now very tall.

As we canoed along the edge of the lake, I noticed that another of my Dad’s favorite values has been upheld. He used to stand down by the lake and shake his fist at motor boats and water skiers, afraid of the damage they did to the lake. Now, almost every dock has a pontoon, or other power boat snugged up to it. Only at our dock do you see two canoes, two kayaks and a paddle board, all of which were in constant use.

Enveloped in my own memories, my inner weather, I was moved by families making some of their own with their children. For we cannot let the past rule. Life being for the living, we turn our eyes to these small kids, wondering what they can possibly make of it! 

There was all that sky, the sun arcing across it and setting in a blaze at the end of the lake. Several storms came in, which you could watch as they moved in across the lake, thunder and lightning foreshadowing them, and the wind blowing hard in the tops of the trees. The lake itself kept changing color, dancing with light, white caps topping the waves at times.

All of the kids were water babies, jumping into the lake over and over. What do they remember of this, a place where there was water just below the house that you could jump into any time a grownup was willing to accompany you? They saw fish underwater. Loons and ducks plied the lake and I saw an eagle and the huge wingspread of a heron. Chipmunks, if your eyes were quick, and a security camera caught a bear in the night.

Absorbed in now, we played with the little kids, as most of us don’t have kids in our homes. Two-and-a-half year old Nessa watched or listened to things on repeat until she understood them. The grownups were thrilled when Tim Walz, who had taught my nephew in high school, was chosen as U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ running mate. The Olympics were also a draw. Everyone cooked or baked, and drank! With the help of nephews and nieces, Don and I made paella in the tradition of Spanish shepherds. Raucous games were played. 

Living outside myself, in the now at the lake, I paid attention to everyone, the images and conversations. At home again, I replay the movies in my head, sorting and processing this richness. There is now, then and the future, all available to us. Despite climate change, domestic conflicts, foreign wars and migrations, Twin Pines has weathered some changes and bids fair to see more.