The summer passed me by so quickly. Around the end of July, I felt it draw up level with me. I stared it in the eye briefly, this fleet-footed season of sticky peaches and sand in socks, and felt a flurry of equal parts exhilaration and panic in my gut. I reached out a hand through the cloud of dust its heels had kicked up, and grabbed a handful of summer's warm, sunny garment. I willed it to stay a month longer. I was not so afraid of losing the race as of the race itself coming to the end, reaching the finish line, pulling up short, and...then what? Then, autumn. Leaving home. Returning to studies. Facing the bureaucracy. Tolerating the frowns. Relearning how to ignore all the rules. Sighing at the ever shortening arctic-winter days.
When I pulled my hand back from grabbing at summer's tail, even as it whisked away from me and around the corner, I found I'd managed to snatch a handful of its golden coat. I tucked the scrap away in my pocket, where it sits to this day. Its color has since faded a bit. But all memory is a little sad, so I don't mind the melancholy now staining my perfect, golden scrap of summer memories.
While it's not in keeping with the general theme of this blog, I wanted to share some of these summer memories in a series of posts.
First, the lake house.
Visiting Bubby Natalie's house by Lake Sunapee was something I always looked forward to as a little girl. For me, it was nothing short of magical. I remember spending countless hours swimming around the sunny dock, squealing in terror and delight with my cousins as the family dog dove in after us. I remember he used to chase the splashes that only grew bigger as we desperately swam away from the ginger retriever. We would finally scramble onto the dock, our noses raw and throats ragged from choking on crystal clear lake water and playful shouting.
It was our job, we were told, to help protect the trout eggs from being pillaged by villainous rockfish. We dutifully, and with great pride, whipped out fishing rods and stood for hours, attempting to tempt the rockfish with bits of bread dangling off tiny red hooks. We were blissfully unaware that our looming shadows warned off even the stupidest fish. When we did manage to catch a few, in the bucket they went, and we named them, and stared fondly down at them. Uncle Danny would take the bucket away from time to time, and it came back empty. We, truly, never thought much of it, trusting that he was taking them off to some "other place", it didn't matter where. In actual fact, which I learned from another relative's late night joking, the fish were bashed on a rock (oh the irony of the poor rockfish's demise) in the woods and thrown to the dog.
After that, I carried on my fishing, but, ever the pacifist (or "pescifist"?), insisted superciliously on having the nearest adult remove the hook from each fish I caught, so that it might be thrown back in, having learned its lesson. Or something like that.
Going back to the lake house this August, I found a new dimension to my love for it. It has a beauty which is tasteful, exquisite, and ruthlessly well-ordered, yet it remains miraculously in harmony with the nature around it. The screened patio looks out at the lake from just the right vantage point, the windows let in just the right amount of light for every time of the day, the chairs are inviting, the narrow staircases hug at you in a friendly sort of way. The wallpaper, art, and photos decorating the walls bring smiles with their gaiety and subtle humor just as often as they coax out sighs with their beauty. Something about all these details make it so that the house feels alive. It looks after all its inhabitants, and is ever glad of guests.
But, you know, a house is only as beautiful, welcoming, and alive as its owner. And so a few words about Bubby Nat.
Bubby Natalie is, without a doubt, the matriarch of my father's side of the family. She was always a small woman, and now that she's well into her nineties she barely reaches my shoulder. But let her height be the only thing about her that is ever describe as "small".
I shan't try to capture her wit, or paint you a picture of her elegance, or sing of the magnificent "zest" with which she seems to do everything - if I did, I'm sure I would fail, unable in my clumsiness to do her justice. I say "zest" in quotation marks because as I wrote it, it didn't seem like quite the right word to describe Bubby. I imagined her reading that description, and I was suddenly worried she might find it either vulgar or else trite. "It sounds like an old brand of dish soap.", she might say, with a sardonic smile. But I must admit an unapologetic love for the word. It's short, it's playful, and whenever I say it, it has a way of forcing my mouth to smile. Zest. "It's fun!", she might say instead, half-scolding us for being so stuffy about a silly little word. I'll risk keeping it in there.
For my fifth birthday party, I told my mother I wanted to be Princess Aurora - the Sleeping Beauty. My royal court would be in the living room, and it was only appropriate that it be a costume party. So she bought me a strawberries and cream birthday cake, a little navy blue velvet dress with tulle skirt, and satin slippers. She also dutifully printed on the invitations something to the effect of: "Princess Sarena cordially requests that her guests arrive wearing costumes."
Some dressed up, most didn't. But I'll never forget the first sight I caught of Bubby Natalie walking into the kitchen of our old Victorian house in Malden, Massachusetts. I was supervising the placing of the candles on my beautiful white cake when I looked up at the sound of a voice, and saw the Fairy of the North Star herself standing in the doorway. Wearing a dazzling costume, complete with a many-pointed silver crown, she was both breathtaking and formidable. I was awed by the white coat, intimidated by the spikes, but thoroughly entranced by the general effect of this august personage holding an invitation to my party.
That's the sort of thing she does, fulfilling that request (which had been directed at the younger party guests) with such playfulness and panache. She's an artist, a poet, a chef, a comedian, and manages to do it all with the best of taste.
If it wasn't already clear enough, I'll say it here. I love her dearly. We all do.
I'll never forget the lake house, the wild blueberries, the challah toast, the countless Passovers celebrated with her, the art, the flowers, the sinful chocolate-zucchini bread. But above all, I'll never forget our dear Bubby.
