art is emotional.




Nan and Papa in front of their soon-to-be home.

 

Friday afternoon I cut out of work early and drove the five hours Northeast to my grandparent's house, because even at twenty five, when given the option of this or nearly anything else, I'll still choose a visit to grandmother's.

We've always been close, although there have been times where a lag between us speaking grows too long and uncomfortable and requires repair.  Still, we reach out to each other to bridge the gap. Because we're family, and we have to, yes, but also because we choose each other.

When, a few years ago, they sold the lake cottage where I spent all of my childhood summers getting sunburned and running wild, I was sure I could never forgive them; I cried myself to sleep for months mourning the place that held so many of my happiest memories. Yet there I was on the day they moved into their new home, helping carry boxes down the perilous stairs and holding a hand for morale and support.

They mean so much that even the fleeting thought of them one day being taken away from me brings involuntary tears to my eyes before I squelch it and move on with my day. A reaction too powerful to really ignore despite the refusal of my stubborn mind to acknowledge the thought.

This weekend, we had a great visit. We dined and cocktailed and chatted and heart-to-hearted. It was everything I needed it to be and it always is. I didn't want to leave, but then again, I've never wanted to leave. They're my biggest fans, so interested in everything I have to say, I feel like a celebrity in their midst. They're equally as fascinating to me. I've grown fixated on asking any question that pops into my mind, determined to learn as much of them and their lives as I can. I attempt to memorize everything so that nothing will ever be lost, no matter the way time and change try to erase things.

After dinner on Friday night we wandered the eclectic downtown area of Ann Arbor, on our way to the ice cream shop as has become our tradition. They're spoiling me, but I think secretly they're partly glad for my visits as a way to excuse generous ice cream consumption. Either way, we're all winning.

We were chatting as we passed a frame shop and I mentioned a map I bought several years ago of the lake that fed my childhood, and how I'd been meaning to have it framed, but it keeps getting lost in the shuffle of life.  Try as I might not to, I always end up bring up the lake when we're together, pushing the tender place we all have on our hearts. What happened next was odd, and heartwrenching.

My papa looked down at my nan and they had a short conversation as if I wasn't even there, and then seamlessly incorporated me back in.

Papa: Nance, I think Sara should get the painting of the cottage, she's always been the one that loved it the most.

Nan: Yes, that sounds right.

Papa: How does that sound, Sara?

Me: I love the painting, of course I'd love to have it. But that's so far away, I've never even thought of it.

Papa: Well it won't be for a while, we're hanging it in the new house. We've still got some life left in us. Just, you know, when the time comes.

Me: I can't really think about that without crying.

Papa: Well, okay. Enough then.

As I am literally choking back tears. I'm just not ready for them to start divvying up their things.

The painting in question is one they had commissioned several years ago, of the cottage and my Nan's garden there in peak form, a reminder they had created for when they were spending winter or fall in their homes in Florida or Ohio.

It's a large picture and it hangs over the fireplace of their sole remaining home in a suburb of Ann Arbor, which they're now selling to move into a smaller home in a retirement community this summer, a fact that equally breaks my heart and infuriates me. I can't stand to think of them getting older and older until they'll eventually leave me.

I just can't even consider it.

They're downsizing for the move to their new, considerably smaller house, and things are being sold and claimed by my dad and his brothers. They're purging their things, and I can't help but think it one of the saddest things a person will ever do in their lives. After a lifetime of continuously, and often accidentally, accumulating all the stuff that makes a life, getting rid of it, putting it into younger hands. Letting things go.

While I'm thrilled at the prospect of having the beautiful painting, a reminder of my favorite place and of my favorite people hanging in my own home someday, I genuinely hope the day never, ever comes when it actually becomes mine.

It was an emotional weekend.

my happiest place.

going home

I've been so busy chugging crazy juice, composing Negative Nancy posts, and having meltdowns about my life this week that I'd kind of lost sight of what happens tomorrow.

VACATION.


Vacation happens TOMORROW. Where will I be traversing for the next ten or so days? Well it's funny you should ask. I'm actually going home. No, this isn't one of those forced "Staycation" dealios where I just marinate in a combination of synthetic air, couch lines on my skin, and six hours a day of whatever Bravo has to offer me because I'm too poor to leave the house. I'm actually heading North to where I spent every summer as a child, Torch Lake.

makes all other lakes look like mud puddles. sorry other lakes.

Since in my impressionable years, my family spent their time moving around like a band of gypsies, this sunny spot provided a constant. Summer = lake = safety= home? Maybe. Yes.  In fact, as a young girl I would sometimes ask to be excused from class to go to the bathroom and whilst sitting on the loo, I'd close my eyes and pretend like I was actually at our cottage, quickly running in the house to the bathroom,  and when I was done I'd just run back out to the dock and straight off the end until I hit water. I was an overly imaginative child.

So, tomorrow I head back up and I couldn't be happier. It's been a few years and maybe something mystical and magical and life-changing will become clear and I'll all of the sudden know what to do with my life. Or maybe I'll just read a shit-ton of books, catch some sunburn on my shoulders and the tip of my nose, kayak every morning, run some hills, and constantly be stocked with a cocktail during every waking hour. That sounds good enough.

I'll spend tomorrow night in Ann Arbor, picking up my Nan. Saturday morning we will reach the lake and I'll probably lose my breath, feel my heart drop out of my chest, and get all emotional when I catch sight of the brilliant blue.

If that's not home, then I don't know what is.

Cheers to your home, wherever it may be.

XO Sara

an ode to what's to come.

I am absolutely meant to be outside for as much time in my life as possible, without a single doubt.



Naturally, I'm fucking THRILLED TO DEATH that we're seeing some significant signs of warmth and life and less punishing conditions in my current locale. I saw daffodils in bloom yesterday that weren't in a grocery store! Driving home from work, I see tennis and soccer and baseball leagues starting practice again, fresh bouncing balls and unscuffed cleats. To me, it looks like relief. Seeing life take hold again.



I don't know if I've sufficiently expressed just how much of a summer person I am, but I'm going to go ahead and cover all my bases on that again right now, just in case not everyone got the whole picture. When the weather is nice, I'm a completely different person. In the summer, the glass becomes half-full, I stay up later than ten pm on weeknights, and I can feel myself just smiling for the sake of it. I sometimes even smile at elderly strangers. Creepy, but also, just, like, stupid cheerful.


I know that everyone gets a little crazy and more fun and just generally lively in the hot, sunny days of warmth and magic, but there's normal-person-contentment and then there's OMGZ SARA IS ALIVE!


My entire happiness in life could almost revolve around waking up with my hair smelling of campfire and that disgusting blackened marshmellow goo still stuck under my fingernails. My snarkiness becomes good-natured sarcasm. I feel lighter, and not just because of the significant reduction in clothing layers. I love the smell of the air and the feel of it, driving with every window down and the music as loud as it will get. There's nothing, nothing, in the world like a hot dog, cold beer, and live music while nursing a sunburn and wearing something cotton and thin. Throwing a blanket down on a patch of grass with a couple of friends at dusk in the summer does more for me than years of therapy ever could.  Summer is my answer to healing anything that ails. It's a miracle cure.


Everyone looks more attractive, comfortable in their own skin. Makeup is minimal if worn at all. Think about it honestly, doesn't everyone look prettier in the summer? Maybe it's the sun, or the warmth, or the feeling that waking up to light instead of dark gives you deep down, but it's true. Summer is the season for romantic flings because people are comfortable and just whatever enough to let themselves just be swept away, if only until the leaves start to change. Summer is never about practicality, and maybe that's why is appeals so strongly to my impractical, impulsive spirit. Moderation has always been lost on me.



And then there's the water, the insatiable urge to submerge myself in a body of water. The water is my favorite part of the whole summer package. I love the look and sounds and smells of bodies of water, lakes, rivers, streams, in the winter months too, but I love the feel of them in the summer. Spending every childhood summer at a cottage on the most beautiful lake in the entire world kind of ruined me, but in the best way possible. Ever go waterskiiing on glass at dawn? It's a religious experience. And I'm not even religious.   (and I'm not bullshitting, take a look:)

Torch Lake : She's a real beaut.

I guess it's probably logical to ask, why do I endure the winter, stay in the Midwest? Why don't I just move somewhere that my summer soul can breathe and play all year round without having to retreat into the darkened corners of my spirit when the days get shorter and the commute involves a fifteen minute defrost period, and stepping out of the shower genuinely feels like cruel and unusual punishment? Because I am from the Midwest, through and through. I swear to myself that I'd never even notice the lack of changing seasons, absence of musical transitions, switching to flannel sheets, the necessity of a hot drink in the morning. I'd be fine without mittens and pressing my frigid hands against Manfriend's belly to torture him warm myself up. It's no secret that I fall short of the joy-to-be-around category in the wintertime, but Winter is part of who I am. It's engrained in there as deep as my need to read books or laugh at the exact wrong time. Maybe I'm only cutting Winter some slack because it's finally loosening its grips and the sun is shining and I didn't wear a coat this morning. Whatever the reason, I'm afraid to find out the person I'd be if I didn't have the weather to dictate some necessary highs and lows in my emotional repotoire.




So I need Winter, I guess, for Summer to feel as good as it does.




Last night was nothing if it wasn't a tease. It was warm enough to sit outside in the backyard with a tumbler of Beam and Diet, in a chair circle with a couple of kimosabes and just enjoy each other and being out of doors, sans mosquitos, coats, shivering. I felt like I hadn't even seen my friends in five months, and I guess we're all coming out of the fog.



We started planning our first ladies-only canoeing/camping trip of the season last night because, finally, it seems plausible again. And believe you me, nothing gets me excited quite like daydreaming about rolling down the river in a bathing suit and the sun frying my shoulders, hopping in the river whenever I need to cool off, doing everything on my own time, singing some very butchered summer-songs with the girls,  and holding a water-bottle of whiskey and coke between my knees as I attempt to navigate our tiny vessel through the minor rapids, wayward branches, and sandbars, while splashing the neighboring boats with my paddle and eating about four packs of hot-dogs in a two day period.



For me, Summer doesn't warrant the same mental-stealing preparation that Winter does. I relish in the heat, often just sitting in my sweltering car for a couple of minutes before rolling down the windows and heading in the direction of my destination. I know, I'm all sorts of weird at times. I CAN'T HELP IT, I GET CARRIED AWAY! Summer is like breathing out after seeing how long you can hold your breath. It's the release.


And it's finally, finally, coming back.


It's supposed to be cold again tomorrow, and stay that way for almost a week, but I'll know that it won't stick; it's the last kick, the Custer's Last Stand.  I trust the summer to come back now, because it always does. And sure, even in the summer I'll be discontent and disappointed with some of the bigger aspects of my life, but Summer is and always will be my time for taking it in stride, believing it will work out in the end, letting the problems seem smaller so I'm not afraid to take them on and solve them.


We're in the final stretch, let's all hold on a little longer.


 Oh, and feel free to unabashedly pull the Marley back out, even if you're not a stoner, it's time for summer music again.




XO Sara