Lake Memories

(Chapter 4, Box 15 Action)

I hated my house and my homelife in Holland. However, Holland welcomed me with its miles of clean beaches, its plush green parks, and its brilliant displays of tulips. Holland comforted me in ways my parents never could. I remember freshman year lying in the sand at VanAndel Beach and watching the 4th of July fireworks literally explode over and rain down upon me, black cinders falling next to my bare arms and legs like giant snowflakes from a dark sky. I remember sleeping on a private beach and waking at dawn to the sound of perfect three-foot golden waves lapping against the wet sand.

I remember one late-fall day standing on the pier just in front of the lighthouse watching in childlike excitement as enormous waves gathered before me, paused briefly as they climaxed and blocked out the red setting sun, and then spilled forth over my body. I remember walking out on the icebergs, trecherously close to the icy water, as snow blew sideways in pellets that stung my face, yet awakened my appreciation for nature.

I remember the yearly painful sunburns, my shyness in exposing my bikinied body to beachgoers, the sand in my hair, the sand clinging to the wet inside of my bathing suits, how syrupy sweet soda felt so cold in my aching throat, how bittersweet it felt to drive home with all the windows down after a day at the beach--the wind whipping my hair across my red face, my towel hugging my half-wet body, the scent of baby oil and suntan lotion everywhere. God, coconut and cocoa butter, I swear that is what sand and lake smell like on a sunny summer day. Even as an adult, it would be hard to convince me otherwise.

Floating on half-deflated rafts, my disappointing sandcastles, guys who were always looking at somebody else, coolers, cerulean blue, armadas of sailboats and motorboats traveling the horizon, cold water, the shock of the first dive head-first, drifting upshore with my eyes closed, swimming out to sandbars and buoys...

There was a night my freshman year when Josh, Josh, John, and I drove John's car out to the empty State Park lot and stood against the food court building that overlooked an expanse of indigo-colored water reflecting the indigo sky that held the tiniest of white diamond-like twinkling stars. The beach breeze held the smell of an impending storm. An indescribable smell that even when remembering it still fills my body with overwhelming emotion, a reverance for the unpredictable power and beauty of nature. Quickly, a gray-black mass of clouds gathered in the fuzzy place where water and sky meet. The clouds rolled forward, spilling steely rain and flashing yellow-white bolts of lightning. Thunder booms and echoes at the beach in a way that suggests the very God of nature is speaking directly to you. The water swirled and ran in haphazard waves toward the shore. The crashing of water on sand repeatedly warned us that it was too late to leave. The rain fell in large plops against my face. Warm, full drops of healing rain cascaded down my upturned face and into the collar of my teeshirt.

It has been eight and a half years since I last visited the lake, my home, in Holland. When will I go back? I've been waiting to hear the sea gulls, to feel the sand burn the soles of my feet, to see the green-blue water sway under a still, gray sky. Will there be kayaking, boating, swimming, tanning, wave-jumping, walking, beach volleyball? Will the beach grass slice red slivers into my ankles on the walkway? Will I walk out on the channel, follow it precariously out to the lighthouse always looking over at the water's edge and wondering if I will fall in? Will I sit in the sand and watch the sunset?

Most importantly, at least when considering the Lake James project, how does my sense of place, this internal landscape of lake life, add to or detract from my portion of the project? Was camp life at Camp Pokagon all that different from my remembered experiences of Holland State Park? Is there something that connects all of who have spent significant amounts of our summer(s) on and near a lake?