Archive | July 14, 2020

Blog Post: The Cottage

Jul14

It was always just The Cottage to me, the way Lake Ontario was The Lake.  Sometimes I have to remember people down in Ithaca don’t have the same context.

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My aunt and uncle – my mother’s older sister & her husband – are selling their cottage on Lake Ontario. (3)

It got flooded badly in 2018 – standing water for months 🙁 (1) and it got very moldy, and they are not young (my aunt must be, let’s see, 50+2020[year]-1+7… 76, and I think my uncle is within a year of that) and not in phenomenal shape.  I understand why they are selling it. 

On the other hand, I am mourning.

This is the last family childhood memory place still in the family – Grandma’s House, my great-grandfather’s house (other side of the family) are both gone.  All that remains is my parents’ place.

So I wrote them up a thing on Facebook, and I thought I would share it here, too.

This was part of my childhood.  I think it’s okay if I’m crying a little.

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I’ve been thinking about this for days. There are so many memories for me associated with the cottage – it’s more like a feeling, a set of emotions, than a memory.

For me, thinking about the cottage says “summer” and “family” in one breath. It brings to mind sand castles and sailing and German Potato Salad; it brings to mind Andrea at the kitchen window saying “Service!” and bridal showers and baby showers…
Grandpa at the kitchen table, telling us things he still remembered, even then, about his earlier life.

I remember when there was still a little cottage between [house of last-name], and [cousin and cousin] and I played make-believe in its doorway/on its porch. I remember, vaguely, the renovation, the new wall, how it looked before the garage.

Summer picnics, of course, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day. It never seems right, not being at the cottage, Uncle [Uncle] manning the grill. Bacon and cheese on triscuits and asparagus wrapped in bread.
I love that the cottage was part of Uncle [Uncle]’s family history, that it became part of our family history. It will always be a part of the geography of my childhood, one of the few places in my life that were not my home that felt, nevertheless, like home.