The Lake

Lighting sparklers for Christmas with my kids in the courtyard.  The smell immediately takes me to the Lake.  My grandparent's summer cottage, that we spent our entire childhoods visiting.
The sparklers, the snakes on the wooden steps, the bigger fireworks for the bigger kids.
Dusk, the mosquitos attacking, Grandma's Skin So Soft which never worked, but we applied liberally anyways. Grandpa in his black leather chair with a small glass bowl of peanuts. Readers Digest, Polenta, and sausages, the lunch bell.
Lying on the single bed with my feet on the wood, playing the drums on the wood leading up the stair case.  The velvet blanket on my bed, the squeaky springs.
Grandma's sewing machine, with the drawers of buttons, fishing on the dock. Getting a splinter and grandpa taking you to the office, putting on his head lamp magnifier. Thinking having said splinter removed is torture.  Happy to be spending alone time with grandpa none the less.
The smell in the building, the old baby things.  Sawdust, the smell of sawdust.
Playing on the potters wheel, wishing it would spin faster.
The sailboat, and the funny bugs that would sun themselves on it.  Those moth things that stuck to everything. Wooden ducks. Spotting Loons.
Grandmas oatmeal with half and half and brown sugar. Green beans from the vegetable garden, grandpas Jeep.  (I wanted that Jeep! May have fuelled my now obsession with them.)
The sound the water makes when it hits the bottom of the canoe, the water that splashed on you from the ores, feeling terrible when you get too tired and Grandpa had to row you all the way home.
The sound the car made going down the driveway, the linoleum in the back hall. Lying on the kitchen floor tracing the squares with my finger.
Always thinking there are bears outside after it got dark.
The hummingbirds, the light catchers, the tiny things that grandma kept.
Vanilla wafers under grandmas pillow when we left.
Her bedroom, and it being off limits to the kids, so when I got to enter, it was almost like a secret cave. Magical and smelled nice. The timers on the bedpost, the doilies, and nice pyjamas.
Big hanging pots of flowers that didn't smell so nice, but looked amazing, the feeling of the sun chairs with the hot soft mesh.
Quiet.