Summer Snapshots Cook's Lake 1949

When I look back on those early days, it is always in the golden ambience of summer. Now, a sixty year old woman, trying to bring back that magical purity, I watch the light of the memory movie play against the crystaline screen of my mind.

I am in my white cotton nightgown, standing in the doorway of the cottage at Cook's Lake. My father takes the picture. My skin is so dark and my hair is so white blonde that, later, when we look at the photo on the black albun page I look like a negative in black and white.

My father, pale and blonde in his Khaki shorts and shirt, playing horseshoes with my bare-chested uncle, tanned, dark and handsome uncle. I hear the reassuring, thrilling sound of my uncle’s deep-chested laughter. the horsehoes clanging against the post. I have two fathers. I am safe.

My Uncle Harry swims out into the lake, making sure that all of us are watching, then disappears for what seems like hours. We think he has drowned. Suddenly, he pops up somewhere else, far away. The three children laugh and cheer, relieved, but awed that he could stay under the water so long without breathing. He seems immortal. After all, he survived being killed by a bomb. He has a medal from the Army. He is a war hero!

I wake up early in the morning, dress in my beautiful rainbow skirt and top, and walki down to the beach and out into the water, in a dream. The water is over my head. I am walking slowly, watching my skirt balloon out around me, noticing how the pale sunlight through the water whitens the rainbow colours. Suddenly I realize that I need to breathe. I cannot breathe under water, I turn around and walk back strongly, purposefully, towards the shore, bubbles escaping from my mouth. I am holding my breath. I am magical, brave, just like Uncle Harry. Emerging from the water, I am triumphant, free. I am one with the water. I walked in and out, without fear. I have never forgotten that timeless moment when my love of beauty and my faith in magic made me immortal.

I never told anyone that I could have drowned because I forgot that I couldn't breathe under water, I reentered my cottage life with my family, the endless days of swimming, diving off the raft, and lying naked in the rowboat with my brother and sister. We were deleriously happy, even if the neighbour's children were not allowed to play with us because we were "wicked."

"Just one more dive and I will come in for supper. "

I know I am not a bad girl. I am a good girl. See me wearing my rainbow dress carrying two splashing heavy buckets of water from the pump to my mother in the kitchen. The kitchen is dark, and has rough wood floors. My mother is always in there, filleting mudfish that we catch in the rowboat. I am allowed to go out in the rowboat with my father and my uncle. I am given my own fishing rod. I catch a fish! I get so excited that I let go of the rod. It sinks beneath the water. I am mortified with shame. But my uncle and my father forgive me. I am redeemed.

My mother and father and Uncle Harry are sitting in the Adirondack wood chairs talking, laughing, playing cards. while we swim. Despite the fact that we are at the cottage, mother’s long dark hair is neatly upswept, nineteen forties style. She is still wearing her flowered apron but, as a concession, she has shorts on, instead of her usual dress. I call to her to come and join us. She makes some excuse not to come. She looks happy to be with her brother and her husband.

One day she relents and arranges to spend time with me. In the rowboat alone with my mother, rowing across the lake, I am surprised by her strength. She shows me how to row the boat by myself. Determined to master it, I manage to manouever the oarlocks and keep the edges towards the water, pulling with all my strength and keeping us moving forward. When we get to the other side, we catch a huge mud-turtle in the reeds. We bring it back to the cottage and keep the turtle in a huge tin wash-bucket for the whole summer. At the end of the summer we reluctantly release him into the reeds once more. I wanted so much to take him home with us. But I am a big girl. I understand.

I am seven years old. It is summer and I am my the kitchen at home, standing on the kitchen stool, leaning against the porcelain sink, watching the bubbles rise in the sunlight. I am wearing blue shorts, nothing else. My hair is blonde and curly, bleached blonde by the sun. I am supposed to be washing dishes. Instead I am playing with the mounds of bubbles in the sink. Each bubble expands, rainbows, explodes gently, then dissolves into cloud piles of tiny bubbles. I am lost in the magical wonderland of it, each irridescent bubble containing a whole fairytale world of wonder.

Lying on my front lawn, watching white butterflies flutter above me, scattering orange blossom petals in my hair, I am eternal innocence.