Helping Mom/Gram get her proposal together in these last several months, trying to be vigilant to her desires and needs and getting them into words that held her meaning all put me in a different place when I began to the write about what camp means to me. I have been focused on what camp means to her; we spent many, many, MANY hours talking about her reminiscences.
She talks about when her father with Uncle Norm and Uncle Marlen bought the land and Grampa brought Mom and Nana up to see it in the side car of his Harley. She tells stories of her uncles and aunts; Uncle Marlen and his death always come up. Many people think of camp as being solidified after Mom bought it from the estate that Nana Chick left to Mom and Aunt Midge. But really the concept of what camp would mean to our family was solidified when Uncle Marlin died. The three men, brothers really though Uncle Marlen was not blood, had owned the land together so when Uncle Marlin died, Grampa and Uncle Norm had to figure out how to hold it all together so that it would continue to stay in the family.
Those of us who reminisce about camp now talk about what it was like before the MacMansions; we talk about camp when there was only Grampa's Cart road. But, Mom talks to me about when there was no cart road, she talks about her father making that road by pulling two trees behind a tractor. The younger generations talk about the way other folks have taken down trees in their yards uglying them up; Mom talks about the years when there were no trees at all after the fire.
When we look forward, we talk about what will happen when the land and cottage will overflow and not hold us all. Mom talks about when there was no cottage at all after it was destroyed by the fire; she talks about standing on the road and seeing only piles of burnt pieces of wood and ash and being able to look down to the lake unimpeded by anything save for the char covered fireplace. She talks about how her father did not hesitate for a moment about the importance of keeping camp, about him and Uncle Norm going around to all the neighbors to buy their burnt property from them. Those neighbors didn't see what Grampa saw; they didn't see that this shoud be a special place for us all forever.
We worry about Cindy being afraid of the mice that might be in there; Mom talks about the time her Grandmother came up to see the land and wouldn't get out of the car because the place frightened her. We go to the lake and stand neck deep and talk, ducking under to pick up a rock that our feet have touched and throwing it to the side to keep the lake bottom sandy. Mom talks of the years we stepped on pieces of window glass or china rounded by the water and threw them into a bucket because they were so beautiful. She remembers the bricks tumbling down the hill into the water as her father and mine rebuilt our camp. We still find the broken chards of brick today. And after the camp was rebuilt she remembers her mother's friends coming up from Portmouth to surprise her with a house-warming shower, giving her beautiful quality china and how Nana always used it in that manner, having their meals formally in the tiny little diningroom. She talks about her mom and dad at camp and you can see in her eyes that she is seeing them right as she talks.
I think I'm ready now, to say what camp means to me. It means my mother's stories of the special things about love and family that she remembers while she sits here looking and seeing what we can't see. It means my father's stories that I can still hear when I sit on the porch and look out to the lake and listen to him. It means my brother's stories as he tells them on the deck at night. It means my sisters' stories when Raetha tells them from her memories, and Cindy from hers. It means the childrens' stories from Zoe to Pat.
And, finally, what camp means to me are my own stories. They are endless. They have defined me, they are mine. My memories are all about sound and faces. My heart cherishs the voices and the laughter; my eyes can never get enough of the faces I love so much. I find such pleasure in hearing the children; there is no laughter I love more than when my siblings and I laugh together; I love my mother saying, "that's enough of that". But maybe most of all I love that I can hear the voices of people long past. I can still hear my grandfather's and grandmother's voices, I can hear my father's voice and laughter, my Uncle Billy's, Dickie's is there and my Cindy's; and I love that I can see their faces, as with my mother, if you were sitting with me you would see in my eyes that I am seeing them right as I write. I love that the long and winding road of my life always leads me to that door.
I like this a lot!
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