Changing Tides
Glenn, MI
July 31, 2020
Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return.
– Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
As those who know me are aware, I am a victim and perpetrator of routine. Coffee, reading, and writing start my mornings, which ordinary shift quickly into work…but here linger leisurely into thought.
The time each day before David wakes are moments, as Whitman said, “to loaf, and invite my soul.” Today I welcome it retrospectively.
As I look around the lawn, and over the lake, I reflect on the last few days…and on the last couple decades.
Since Monday, David and I have done nothing out of the ordinary. But we have done it together, which is always extraordinary. Tuesday we left the house only to lounge on the deck or the beach. It was routine…and wonderful.
Wednesday I did something most would rank just below bathing a cat or cleaning a grease pit. I sat in a cart watching another person play golf. But when the other person is my younger son, I have no issue being the audience.
My frozen right shoulder keeps me sidelined, but shouldn’t keep David off the field. We usually play at Hawks Head, but for variety and a faster round, he tried…and enjoyed…a quick nine holes at Beeches. Then, as every day, we hit the beach.
For a change of scenery, we made an excursion yesterday morning into Saugatuck. We grabbed cups of coffee at Uncommon Roasters, and slowly drained them at a sidewalk table under the crisp morning air.
Couples and families, most led by their children or their dogs, wandered past, seeking no particular place in this resort town we’ve come to know well. When we finished our coffee, we joined the pursuit.
Yesterday afternoon, on what might have been our last time in this body of water, Lake Michigan gave us its best. The water temperature was perfect. David said several times that it had never felt so good. I can’t argue.
When we dove in, our entry produced the only ripples in the water. The surface was calm enough to accommodate a patient undergoing a delicate surgical operation. For an hour we waded, tossed a football, and simply let the soothing fresh water wash over us.
As we came out, the lake began to stir. As we strolled half a hour up the beach, water that had recently washed the shore now began to crash upon it. We decided to get back in, and were buffeted by waves as large as any we’d ever entered on this shore.
It was amazing. The wind had picked up a bit, but the weather was essentially unchanged. But we’ve been here enough to know that the waves we see often have less to do with ambient conditions here than with the flapping wings of some distant meteorological butterfly.
The rapid, and drastic, change in aquatic temperament was an appropriate send off for our last day…perhaps our last time…at this wonderful place. We have been blessed with the ability to use it, and with generous hosts who allow us to do so. But, like the lake, times change, often before we know it.
We first came here when our elder son was learning to walk, and before our younger one was born.
This week, neither that elder son, nor his mother, are here. The younger one has made the most of this visit, realizing he may not be here again.
But the memories remain. As I sit one more morning atop this bluff, they are flooding back.
Building sandcastles on the beach, playing baseball in the yard, throwing footballs in the lake, tossing my sons into the waves, ordering pizza from the Glenn Store, grilling steak on the porch, Rita bringing us lunch on the beach, smiling at the Hudsonville ice cream shop in South Haven, laughing on the playground and bungee cords in Saugatuck, whiling rainy days in Holland, playing golf at Hawks Head, picking blueberries at Earls, paddling canoes on the water, sailing kites on the wind, boating on the lake, hauling fish from its depths, swimming to “the Rock”…and standing triumphant atop it.
I woke a couple hours ago to indulge another tradition: laundry. As I awaited clean sheets and towels, I grabbed my coffee, and returned to this deck. Well offshore, under the especially high lake, the rock was barely visible. As I sat here writing this, the waves began to roll. The submerged stone slowly turned to shadow, and has since vanished from view.
The only drawback to this week was Rita and Alexander were not here to share it with us. But their absence comes with a silver lining, and offers something we rarely have here…some solace in having to leave.
JD
