Oh to be here.

Thousand Islands and a house party with every cabin stuffed with people. Host and hostess yes but raising money for some charity down in Manhattan. An expensive ticket each and whatever’s left to do something good.

Well, maybe nothing good in the end but lots of fun. Porches with those funny railings made from sapling chunks and arches made from tree branches that grew curved around a big rock.

Gazebo on the point to sit in and canoes to take in the view with young gentlemen to do all the paddling. Picnics on the island opposite and plenty of lawn to sunbathe.

Bears off in the woods somewhere and a feral pig or two but hopefully too much noise for them to come visiting. Better not, what with the latches on the cabin doors not working. A husband to watch out but one afraid of tusks. Something about being taken to too many bullfights visiting his other grandparents in Spain.

Gin and tonic before dinner and lobster every other day. Baked alaskas carried in with the lights dimmed with so many sparklers they look like oddly shaped hedgehogs all aflame.

A treat. A little time to rest and think. Sunday afternoon and everyone else busy napping and waiting for dinner to roll around. Bookshelf with old albums on a shelf in the big cabin from they used to spend the whole summer back before they lost half their money and had to start renting it out most of the time.

Pictures and old sheet music flipped through but a picture falling out onto the floor. From one of those tableaux, it must be. Little girl in a tunic and mary janes with a floral wreath clutching a lily. Could be from Easter but surely Easter in New York it would have been what with everything in the north with snow until summer nearly.

No way to know, of course . . . a little cousin   . . .all those boys but there must have been a girl somewhere . . . hopefully a nice husband later. . .but small and loved. . . all that really counts . . .

Oh to be here.

Falmouth and sea smells that run through the house. Saltwater, children shrieking as they race into the water over at the beach and the stench of dead clams and kelp lying across the rocks.

Beginning of July and a few beds left to be made before the rest of them come. The second floor done but not the old maids’ rooms up under the roof.

No more maids. Rooms for teenage grandchildren instead. Probably smoking up there and blowing it out the windows like everyone did in boarding school. Funny. Everyone doing that before. Roof must smell entirely of tobacco with gutters packed with old Lucky Strike packs from when that cousin sat up there, chain-smoking through all the bad storms because the wind made him nervous.

Garden the same with the old tennis court. Still there where Father played but the net a little bit sagged and weeds sprouting in the cracks. But having to wait. Hard. Not too old to sit and read but knees too bad to pull dandelions. A young grandchild thing like getting paid a penny apiece to get Japanese beetles off Grandmama’s roses at the end of the drive by the garage. Five pieces of candy one could get for that but not now. No, a child needing two dollars at least to get three. The same otherwise, though, a mason jar with a lid to put them in and small fingers to count them up.

Same house and room in one’s mind to go back. Seeing Grandpapa playing billiards in the old barn and the croquet set out on the lawn.

But long ago, back when girls had party dresses with long silk sashes and those huge hair bows that covered half your head and made you feel like the hair on top was being yanked out. Too many hairpins holding the things on and a feeling of getting jabbed with each one.

But a memory like the pictures in the bottom of a hope chest. . . sisters dressed like twins and together forever in the house by the sea . . .

 

Oh to be there.

Michigan and right on the lake. Motel room in a thunderstorm. Only a week’s vacation but that cousin struck by lightning and killed.  Better to stay inside and the umbrella likely to turn inside out just going to the dining room for lunch.

Balcony with a railing with round things made to look like the rings on a lifeguard’s tower but somehow looking more like white Lifesavers candy in the bottom of a Christmas stocking.

Movies to watch and books to read. Cards to play with one’s husband if he isn’t busy napping. But not the same to him. No, from out west and nothing mid-west for a memory.

But yes. Picked up at the end of camp and driven around to various places until school started. Two at a time and all the time in the world with both grandparents. Parents at home with the others but not having to go there until school starts. Someone else’s turn next year. Another turn the summer after that.

A different restaurant every day and television until it went off instead of being turned off and being made to go to bed. Endless change for the soda machine and fun all day.

But a postcard falling out of the pocket in the bottom of the overnight case. Something to keep and remember, it was.  . . not knowing it was the last time . . . some things it’s better not to know. . .

Oh to be here.

Maine with summer coming in and a sunset to want to sink into the sea with. Water still so cold even the children run in and out.

Pastures with blueberries and deer that roam through the mist. Fisher cats that come up on the porch when no one’s looking and bears somewhere one doesn’t want to look.

Cousins in every house and living out of each other’s pockets. The only way to live, really. Husbands very nice but not the same.

Someone you sat in a playpen with to watch the world go by. Fought over the same turkey drumstick at the same children’s table every Thanksgiving in Grandmother’s apartment on Central Park West. February in the southwest and ponies to race into the sun.

Boarding school and then finished at ecoles in Switzerland. Young men in London and more in Rome and finally one that stuck. Two houses of one’s own in Connecticut but Maine being home.

Great grandmother’s big house up in Bar Harbor gone after the war. Five maids needed and no one wanting to be a maid anymore, at least not there. But the move south and three houses now instead of just the one. Nicer views, too. Old house looking out at a twin with a matching porch and these staring out at sea.

Lunch a bit late and the framed pictures on the mantelpiece taken down. On the wall with Cousin Patricia in those sailor outfits that everyone wore for best. A great aunt’s birthday, it had been.

Fun it was. . . running across the lawn while the grownups drank their cocktails . . . but oh no . . . .Patricia riding into the goldfish pond on her bicycle and the mothers running . . . .that part not fun for sure but a memory for later to last one’s whole life long.