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?

Camp Freewrite

(Chapter 2, Box 4 Action)

As Erin and I begin to work on our big Lake James project, I must think back to my childhood. For those of you unfamiliar with the topic Erin and I will be writing about, we are writing about the history of Camp Pokagon with a focus on some of the boy's and girl's camps in the Lake James area. Like many of the children who played on the beaches of Lake James, I, too, once spent a weekend of my summer at camp.

At age 10, I was a second-year member of the Campfire girls in Holland, Michigan. My particular troop originated from Maplewood Elementary School, which was located just a few short miles from Lake Michigan. During the school year many of us Campfire girls worked hard at many projects to earn patches and beads for our Campfire vests (similar to Girl Scouts). We learned about recycling, learned photography, practiced using our imaginations, visited a real news station in Grand Rapids and later filmed our own program on public television, and even learned how to make homemade candy. However, nothing beat preparing for our first weekend (well, at least my first weekend) away from home to earn our badges for learning real camping skills.

I remember learning to tie at least ten different types of knots, learning how to start a fire with sticks and brush and also with pieces of flint, and learning the different plants on nature walks near the dunes of the lake. I remember staring in amazement at the bunk beds stacked three high that wrapped around the room of our cabin, and I remember unrolling my green sleeping bag on a bunk that was literally less than two feet from the ceiling.

The most fun of all, as I imagine it is for all young children, was the nighttime. Outside we built a fire as big as we were and set out immediately making Smores. Even though I never liked Smores, making them was exciting. I'd see how long I could hold the marshmallows over the fire before they erupted into flame and oozed down into the glowing embers below. After Smores were classic campfire staples such as star gazing, rounds of "Koombaya" and ghost stories. Under the full moon we also carried our flashlights on a nighttime hike that was punctuated with the shrill shrieks of pre-adolescent girls who swore they just had heard an animal/murderer/ghost following us through the woods.

The last day of camp was filled with equal parts rain and sorrow. I had to leave this entirely different way of life and head back into the city where I'd be learning nothing other than reading, writing, and arithmetic in the fall; where nighttime would be filled with orange light pollution and random music from the cars that sped past my house; and where my bed was just another mattress covered in New Kids on the Block bedsheets. I wonder if all those kids who spent their summers on Lake James felt the same as I did.