I Was Born a Lake Girl 💦

A love affair spanning a lifetime

Lake Leelanau days

Lately, I’ve been having boat dreams, so here I am, writing about Lakes. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, being that we have had less than a handful of sunny days this June. And another week of stormy sun-less weather is forecast.

No one loves a good rainstorm more than I do, but this is getting ridiculous. I would mention geoengineering, but, not today. Well, I guess I did just mention it.

I digress.

This photo caught my eye not long ago, and I felt my heart skip a beat.

I was born a Lake girl.

Not technically. Not on a Lake. Or in a Lake. But, how wonderful would that have been?

I love Lakes so much that I feel the need to capitalize them.

This love affair undoubtedly has to do with having grown up in Michigan, the mitten state. I once read on a paper placemat in a restaurant (on a Lake, of course) that when you live in Michigan, you’re never more than 30 minutes away from a Lake.

I grew up in Detroit, and yes, even Detroit was just 30 minutes away from many Lakes.

Michigan, boasting the longest freshwater coastline in the world, has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds and 11,000 lakes. Wherever you are in Michigan, you are less than six miles away from a natural body of water.

—”Twenty Most Beautiful Lakes in Michigan” - VacationIdea

Some people need to be near the ocean. We were surrounded by the Great Lakes, and that was good enough for me.

We frequently had family picnics, and when we got older, my two sisters and my brother, and I would water ski behind my dear dad’s favorite child, his turquoise blue motorboat. It wasn’t anything fancy, but boy, did he ever love that boat. One of my dreams was about his boat.

My nephew, in awe of his grandpa’s boat

When I was a teenager, I would go fishing with my dad on one of the Lakes. He did all the fishing while I just lay in the sun. :)

One time, I held the line at the boat launch while my dad went to park the car across the road. I watched the people coming and going, and when my dad returned, and said, “Barbie! (Yes, they called me Barbie.) “Where’s the boat?” Oops. I never noticed that the line had slipped from the boat and it had drifted to the middle of the Lake.

I have so many Lake memories I could fill a book.

Learning to swim at Camp Dearborn.

I was terrified of the water when I was little, but my wacky fun Aunt Edna somehow got me to put my little head under the water.

There were paddle boats and a sandy beach and ice cream, and shady picnic areas. And green wooden outhouses that will forever carry an awful olfactory memory for me. To this day, I will always opt for the woods rather than a port-a-potty or an outhouse, thanks to Camp Dearborn.

Our elementary school had its end-of-the-year picnic there. Here I am (the dark-haired one) with my best friend, Barbara. The only other Barbara I would ever know growing up. She was the bubbly outgoing one, I was the introvert.

Pretty much every summer, we would pack up the station wagon and head Up North, as they say in Michigan.

Up North could be anywhere north of Detroit, as far as I was concerned, but we usually headed up to Lakes in the northwestern part of the state.

Crystal Lake. Where there was a giant slide on the beach that went into the water. Undoubtedly pre-lawsuit days. This was the 50s, after all.

Barbie, 1955??

There was Crawford Lake, which I mentioned in “Turtle Tales.”

Turtle Tales

When I was little, and we would arrive at Kuba Kaska Cottages on Crawford Lake, the first thing that greeted me when I stepped out of the car was the smell of Pine trees.

My love of Pine was born in Northern Michigan.

There was Torch Lake.

One of the crystal-clearest and coldest Lakes I’ve ever been in.

And, of course, Lake Michigan.

Who needs the Caribbean?

And then there was Higgins Lake.

I loved that Lake so much. I started going there with my boyfriend and his family while we were in high school. After we married, we vacationed there for one week every summer for decades.

There were five teeny green (or were they brown?) wooden cabins.

This was no-frills vacationing.

The cottage had an oil-burning stove that we had to light by throwing wadded-up newspaper in with kerosene.

There was a clubfoot bathtub without a shower (one was finally put in a few decades later), so you would have to kneel and stick your head under the faucet to wash your hair. Usually, we just jumped into the lake.

The bathroom came fully occupied with daddy long-leg spiders.

The mattresses were, well, ancient.

And so many other non-amenities.

I didn’t care. It was heaven on earth to me.

There was a screened-in porch with a swing.

In the back were the woods, giving us total privacy. A baseball field was carved out where we had pick-up games with our neighbors from the other cottages.

In front were a pristine white sandy beach and the Lake, which was shallow and a clear light blue until you reached the dropoff, where the water turned deep dark indigo. We would take the rowboat out, toss in the anchor, and jump into the inky water.

It was magical.

There was a gazebo, or so we called it, on the edge of the beach, shaded by mostly Pine trees, where you would always find someone reading or having a cocktail, taking a nap on the swing, or just seeking shelter from the sun.

My mom and dad started coming up with us when the kids were little. Bernie always had her head in a book. We had that in common.

Bernie and little Amy

The same families came up every year, and so it was like a reunion.

The cinnamon donuts at Town and Country, a little convenience store a few miles away, were to die for. I love donuts so much that I would hide them from the others in the cottage. :)

There was a Dairy Queen.

Put-Put Golf around the Lake.

What we didn’t have was a television. And, oh, I’m so grateful computers weren’t on the scene yet.

So we were outside, weather permitting. If we had a rainy day, we read books or played games.

I would quietly cry every time we said goodbye to everyone and headed back home. I was always sure to say my farewell to the Lake and the Pine trees.

Years later, post-divorce, my sister and her husband began inviting me up with their family to another treasured memory.

Lake Leelanau.

It quickly became my favorite week of the year - being with family on this beautiful Lake. I traveled from NYC to Michigan every summer for many years.

While there was a pontoon boat and jet skis, I still loved taking out the rowboat. I was pretty much the only one interested in it.

It was my happy solitude time.

I felt a little guilty when I started renting a kayak and neglected the rowboat a bit.

The last time I spent a week at Lake Leelanau was in August of 2020, just before I made my big move to New Hampshire. The owners of the Lake home no longer rent it out in the summer, and so now it’s just another of my Lake memories.

I remember while saying my moving mantra, “I want to live somewhere where I can walk out my door into the woods, and I want to see mountains,” that sometimes I would add, “I’d like to be near a Lake.”

It wasn’t until I’d officially moved here that I learned I lived in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire!

Talk about some serious moving manifestation!

There’s Big and Little Squam, the latter being famous for being the location of “On Golden Pond.”

Big Squam

There’s Lake Winnipesaukee that I pass by on my weekly errands. My friend, Robin, and I sat on its shore eating lunch while searching for my new home.

When I drive by a lake, even in the dead of winter, my heart sighs. It’s way better than any antidepressant, I imagine.

We have lots of Ponds here, too.

Bearcamp Pond is just minutes away, and my friends and I kayaked and canoed there last summer, picking blueberries and just chilling on what my friend’s granddaughter, Scarlett, calls Whale Rock.

Are you a Lake lover? Ocean lover? River lover? We can be all three, you know.

What is it about bodies of water that calm us so?

We are mostly water, so I guess it makes perfect sense how necessary it is to spend time in and around them.

At the risk of over-quoting Ted Andrews, here are a few gems from “Nature-Speak”:

Lakes and Ponds: opening to the spirit world; an oasis; nourishment of body, mind, and soul.

As with all sources of water, the lake is a place of magic, mystery, and the feminine in all things, and it has found itself frequently in myth and lore. In the legends of the Holy Grail and King Arthur, the Lady of the Lake gave to Arthur the sword Ex Caliber.

Lakes have often been compared to forests in their energies. One is a watery environment but with the same feminine energies so often associated with the forest.

I’m not at all surprised by Ted’s reference to King Arthur. Surely I’ve told you of my love of all things Arthur and Merlin. Have you ever read “The Mists of Avalon?”

As always, thank you for coming with me down memory lane.

I have pulled the Turtle Oracle Card FIVE times in the past week! Meaning, I guess, that it’s time for me to stay inside and do some serious writing. Perfect timing because the deer flies have arrived and their plan is to torment me until mid-August. I just dared to sneak outside to fill the birdbath in a tank top, and one covertly bit me on my arm.

Wishing you a summer with lots of water time, be it a Lake, a River, a Pond, an Ocean, or all of the above.

Much Love,
Barbara