Memory of a Place: Try to imagine a place from your past. Do you have pictures of this place? Describe this place as you remember it. What might a photograph look like of this place if you were to go back and photograph it? What would it look like in the past? What would it look like to you today? Where are you standing in this place? What other items are in this place? What colors do you see? Are there other people or are you alone? Make a “written photograph” of this place using words/description.
A very important place in my past, and probably my favorite place in this world, is Up North. Growing up, Up North was a small plot of land in Oscoda on the beach of Lake Huron. The property had three small cottages- one for my grandparents (who bought it as a family gift), one for my parents and one for my aunt and uncle. The cottages were adorable, small and white paneled, each only a couple of rooms. The biggest consisted of a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room and one bedroom. I could go into great detail describing the interiors of each, but it is outdoors that most of my memories reside.
The beach was the most striking characteristic of the property, and also where I spent most of my time. The sandy grass growing around the cottages slowly transitioned into pure sand the closer it got to the beach. One of my favorite parts was a small tree that grew out of a pile of rocks right where the transition from thin grass into sand ended. It was thin and somewhat weak looking, but on the Fourth of July my dad would fasten spinning fireworks to it as part of his grand show, which was one of my favorite parts for some reason. The rocks, thin and flat, concealed an ant colony which I would frequently peep in on.
The beach itself was heartbreakingly gorgeous. The view of Lake Huron extending out far beyond the horizon, gradually darkening into a deep steely grey-blue near the horizon, always swept me away as a child. Large freighters in the distance were always a treat to behold, and it wasn’t uncommon to see sailboats and small jet skis skimming across the distant waters either. Looking to the far left down the beach revealed a patchwork of small beach houses, cottages and rental homes, and ended in a distant pier silhouetted against the lake and sky, while the far right consisted of a similar combination of buildings and a distance that has faded away in my memory. I think it led into a bigger part of the small town, but I just can’t remember clearly.
In my memory, I’m standing near the transition point of the grass and sand, in the middle of the three cottages which roughly aligned to form the shape of a “U,” the open end towards the lake. I’m looking at my beloved tree in the foreground and the lake in the distance. I’m alone and it’s probably late morning, but my parents are in our cottage behind me, my grandparents are cooking a hearty breakfast in theirs and I’m impatient to rush next door and summon my best friend from next door, Bridgette, to go swimming with me. It is the calm before the excitement of the day, swimming and adventuring, make-believe and sand castles. I am five years old and this is my paradise.
This is also the calm before the storm that was soon to sweep through the life of me and my family that separated me from this memory to which I still cling.
Today, I don’t can’t say for sure what Up North is like. My parents divorced, my father passed away (it was his parents who bought it), my Uncle (their other son) became estranged, my grandfather got sick, and the property was ultimately sold to Bridgette from next door’s family shortly before my grandfather’s death. But even before it was sold, it had been a number of years since I had been up there because life has a way of losing its simplicity as the years progress.
Last I saw of it was on a cold, gray day, unlike the endless sunny days of summer that live immortal in my memories. My mom took me up to say goodbye before the sale was finalized, and it was both exactly the same and vastly different, all at once. Physically, almost nothing had changed, but emotionally it was drenched in a deep sorrow that I know tainted my memory, because it seemed so lonely and empty when I always knew it to be vibrant and full of life.
I don’t want to remember it this way, and maybe that’s why this last visit has mostly faded away into the deep recess of my mind. I took a camera with me that day, but it never left its case, tucked away in the car.
Bridgette’s family was big and growing, and I’m sure today it is full if new life with its new family, but I can’t help but worry about what could have become of it, filled with so much rustic beauty, in the hands of an immensely wealthy family concerned with physical possessions and abundance. I’m afraid of changes and renovations they have probably made to my quaint paradise, which is no longer mine.
Selfishly, I hope they love it for how it was, for how I remember it, so it can continue to exist in a timeless state of Eden.
No comments:
Post a Comment