You can sort of go home again

My older brother, John Peckham, called last night to say Sunday he will be moving from a rehab facility where’s he’s been doing PT back to his ranch outside Tolar. He will need the big, clumsy electric wheelchair that is taking up way too much space in my closet, and I am delighted to give it to him. Christian determined make and model last night, and I called Colin who is smart about these things so he could look online about new battery, etc. As a bonus, Christian found all the original paperwork in a pocket on the back of the chair, but he reported when not turned on, the chair is dead weight. Moving it will be a problem, and we are still working on that.

But it was much on my mind when I went to bed last night, and so, of course, I dreamed about it. We (not sure who we was) were at John’s, waiting for word to come get the chair in a truck, but John said first he wanted to go to the Dunes. A word of explanation: when we were growing up our family had a time-share on a rustic (operative word) cottage in the Indiana Dunes State Park. Dad and a colleague had owned it years before in their bachelor days. At some point, the State of Indiana exercised eminent domain and took over the cottage, but every year Dad got a rental contract for the season. He said each year he held his breath until that contract came.

The cottage really was rustic. On a high dune, three flights of stairs above the beach, it had a commanding view of the length of Lake Michigan to the front (I loved to watch storms roll down that lake and to this day I trace my love of a good storm, sans tornadoes, to the Dunes) and a dense forest to the back. It also had no running water (a cistern pump) and no electricity. There was an outhouse down the hill in the woods, and at night you went to bed early because Dad was paranoid about burning the mantle in the Aladdin lamps. It was too dark to read. And you didn’t just drive up to the cottage—you had to pack in your clothes and groceries, either a mile down the beach (too hot) or through the woods (our preferred route).

So in my dream we were talking about going back to the Dunes. John and I and my ex-husband went in the late sixties and had not been back since. When I went to Chicago with my children six years ago or so, they scheduled a morning trip to the Dunes followed by lunch at a North Side restaurant. I had to explain that the time schedule did not work, but their intentions were the best: they knew how big a place the Dunes hold in my heart.

But suddenly, in my dream, it dawned on me that I couldn’t go back to the Dunes. There is no way to maneuver a walker either through the woods or down the beach and up all those stairs. That made such a huge impression on me that I sat bolt upright in bed.

My rational mind has known for a long time that neither John nor I are very mobile. We haven’t had a contest, but in a walker race, I think I would win. Besides there is no there at the Dunes for us anymore. Sometime around 1969, the state stopped renting cottages to long-term leaseholders, rented them to weekenders for a while, and then tore them all down. So I guess in some deep way that aha! moment I had was sort of a Thomas Wolfe You Can’t Go Home Again bit of reality, a recognition that John and I are older and different, and we can’t ever recapture the past. We can remember, but we can’t relive.

Over the years John and I have sometimes been close, sometimes almost estranged in recent years. There’s an elephant in the room with us—politics. But we have much more that binds us together—our Chicago background, our families past and present, osteopathic medicine, Texas (we both like dogs—he can have the cattle). We had grand, huge family celebrations, until both our families grew too large to do that. Since his health has taken a turn, I think, without ever talking about it, we are closer. We talk on the phone often, and I have taken all four grown children to see him. From his hospital bed, a wink or a look with a smile tells me he’s glad I am there, and we are still brother and sister. He is, after all, the one who used to protect me from all kinds of evil, like bad boys who teased me when I was little and very shy. And he is the one who said, “You need to get away from home” and took me to Missouri to graduate school. He had a hand in shaping my life, and I have always known he was there for me.

I think he will like this story. But now about that blasted wheelchair ….

Do you have a safe place?

 

Several days ago, I read a blog post by a writer show said that when she was stressed, she went for a drive on small country roads and found solace in familiar places. Easy enough for her to do—she lives in a small town in Maine. But for those of us who are city dwellers, such oases maybe hard to find. So, I close my eyes and go in my mind.

My longtime safe place is an outcrop about halfway up a tall dune in the Indiana States Dunes Park. When I was a child my family had a cabin at the top of that dune, up two very long flights of stairs from the beach. The cabin was primitive—no electricity, no running water. To the front of the living area, great windows looked out over Lake Michigan. The cabin was at the very foot of the lake, and I loved to watch storms roll down the lake and stir up the waters on our beach. My mom taught us to enjoy a storm, never to fear it, a habit I carry to this day (if there are no tornadoes). To the back of the house, windows looked out on a lovely, dense woods. The hitch was that the outhouse was down a small hill in those woods—a perilous journey in the night.

For refrigeration, we had a cold box on a pulley. Once a week, the iceman cometh—bringing a great block of ice which went down the hole first and then the box was lowered on top of it. Mom knew to put milk on the bottom shelf, closest to the ice. I can’t even remember what Mom cooked on before we got bottled gas. I do remember that she washed dishes in cistern water and then rinsed them in scalding water she’d boiled on some sort of stove. There was a pot-bellied stove in the living area for warmth. At night, we read by kerosene lamps, with Dad always warning us to turn the light down lest we burn the mantel. The dim light was hard to read by, and we went to bed early. I should also mention that the closest we could drive to the cabin was about a mile. We had to pack food and groceries in on our backs, often in old army duffle bags. You could go down the beach—and for the first trip when we arrived each summer, we sometimes had so much to carry we hired the park Jeep to drive that mile. But we preferred the woods—we parked at a shelter house, under a tree, and hiked in over a long bridge across the swamp and then up and down sandy paths. The woods were always cool.  That hike was also perilous at night, and at least once Dad stopped us while a skunk made its leisurely way across the path.

I usually took a friend with me when we went there. We thought it was heaven—days spent on the beach, hiking through the woods, playing Monopoly. Food tasted better there than anywhere else. We came back to Chicago tanned and healthy and happy.

My safe place, where I go now, was a crop-out on the path to friends’ cabin, below the second set of stairs. I can remember sitting there, staring out over the lake, my dog—a wild collie mix named Timmy—by my side. I could pull up a blade of dune grass and pull it through my teeth. There was usually at least a small breeze, though I always enjoyed the strong wind of a storm. I could angle my vision to the right and look across the lake at sunset to see Chicago with the setting sun behind it. The sun would be a bright orange globe, and the tall buildings of Chicago, not even toothpick size. Behind me, sometimes, my dad would be taking sunset pictures. When he died, he had a closet full of those old-fashioned slides, mostly sunsets or flowers from his gardens.

I have a new safe place, and it’s a fine one, though it doesn’t come with the same memories. My son Colin and his family live on either the smallest lake or biggest tank in Tomball, Texas. There is a patio, with benches and chairs looking out over the water and an arboretum overhead (that could easily drop bugs in your wine). We go there sometimes in the evening, with an after-dinner wine and sit in quiet peace.

So maybe it’s water that makes a safe place for me. I am not a swimmer, though I swam when young. Still I was never completely comfortable in the water. I’ve always said I do not want to be in it or on it, but I love to look at it.

How about your safe place?

You really can’t go home again

Friend Jean told me that the newspaper had a feature on the Indiana Dunes and she thought that was where my family and I spent summers. It was, and I was excited about seeing the article, anticipating memory-evoking prose and maybe some familiar scenes. She brought me the article when we had supper at Tokyo Café tonight, and I could hardly wait to get home to read it.

A major disappointment. At first glance, I thought it wonderful that the Dunes had been upgraded to national park status, but reading further on I realized that the national park is a much larger swath of land that encompasses the smaller Indiana Dunes State Park of my memory. A major highway cuts through the national park which also encompasses such surrounding towns as Chesterton, Valparaiso, and Beverly Shores—all familiar names from my day but surely not part of the park. Tours suggest staying in those towns, down to what B&Bs and restaurants are recommended.

In my day, some sixty-plus years ago, there were two entries to the park—the beach, which featured a pavilion—we called it The Pavilion—which was always to my mind crowded and dirty. People were not careful with their bathroom habits, their food, and their trash. To get to our secluded cabin by the beach, we would have had to pick our way through crowds of beach bathers (I have less attractive names for them) and then walk a mile down the beach, in the hot sun, carrying whatever we needed. My family much preferred the woods.

We would park in a small parking lot with a canteen that was sometimes open, sometimes not. Then out came the duffel bags and backpacks because we had to carry clothes, groceries, books, whatever we needed, and we headed into the woods. I can almost follow the route and the various trails in my memory, though surely if I were there today, I’d be lost. Usually we went in the daytime, but I remember one night when Dad stopped all of us on the trail to let a skunk pass. A mile of up and down on sandy trails, watching for poison ivy, and we were home, home being a small cabin with no running water (a cistern pump), no electricity, and an outhouse. We thought we were uptown when we got bottled gas for cooking and a real refrigerator.

The back of our cabin looked out over the serene woods, while the front, high up on a dune, offered a spectacular view of Lake Michigan. The cabin sat literally at the southernmost tip of the vast lake, and it was where I learned to love storms, watching them roll down the length of the lake from the north.

I got no sense of that long lost world from the article, which seemed written for the tourist who wants to drive, in comfort, from one B&B to the next one, with a nod to those who want to hike. A two-mile trail takes in the Bailly homestead, site of early settlers to the area. It was definitely not in the park I knew.

My dad and a friend owned the cabin as bachelor physicians, and we continued to share it with that other family all the years I remember. Sometime along the way the State of Indiana exercised it eminent domain rights and took over the cabins, leasing them back to previous owners every year. It was always a waiting game—would the lease arrive this year? In 1969, the year my folks retired and moved to North Carolina, the lease was cancelled. The state rented the cabins as weekend getaways for a few years and then burned them all.

I don’t think I could bear to go back and see the spot where our cabin stood, though the way dunes shift and change the landscape, I probably couldn’t even find it. But I often go back in my mind. I had a favorite spot, halfway down the dune to the beach, on a path to friends’ cabin. There was a little outcropping, and at sunset I could sit there, my arm around Timmy, our collie mix, and watch the sun set behind the skyscrapers of Chicago, some forty miles across the lake. The sun would be a huge red ball and the skyscrapers, tiny black dots in front of it. Sitting there, in my mind these days, I am in my safe spot.

I guess maybe memories are better than today’s reality.

The Beauty of Storms

Around five this morning I was awakened by a furry black body leaping into my bed and pressing up close against me. Only then did I hear the thunder and lightning. Sophie does not like to be alone in storms. Her preference is to be as close as possible to me.

Apparently I missed a heck of a storm. Jordan said later that she too was wakened by dogs and told Christian, “I hope Mom is enjoying this.” I do love a good storm, a love that stems back to my childhood days. My brother tells me that our mother taught us to love the fierceness of storms rather than to be scared by them.

When I was a kid, my family had a cottage high on a dune in the Indiana Dunes State Park. The cottage literally sat at the foot of Lake Michigan, and we could watch storms roll down the lake toward us. When we saw one coming, great preparations would ensue. Dad would put the windows back in the frames---they came completely out to allow fresh air. Awnings would be pulled in. And I would sit mesmerized, looking at the clouds and whitecaps. Lake Michigan in fury is a powerful thing to behold.

When my parents allowed, I loved to be on the beach, with the wind whipping my hair, my feet digging into the sand to get a foothold against the wind. I wasn’t allowed on the beach alone if there was a storm, but I could go to a spot on the second level of the dunes that I had carved out as my own. A little sandy knoll stuck out among the grasses and weeds, and I would sit there forever with my dog, a female collie mix incongruously named Timmy. From that sot at sundown I could watch the sun go down behind the buildings of Chicago, which looks unbelievably small. Sometimes yoga or meditation instructors urge you to go to a quiet, peaceful spot in your mind, and to this day that knoll is the spot I go to.

The lake was powerful and tricky, and I was taught always to be careful. I had to swim parallel to the shore and to touch my foot on the bottom to make sure I hadn’t gotten in over my head. I still can’t swim in the deep end of a pool where I can’t touch my foot to the bottom. Riptide was a word I didn’t even want to hear.

There were more or less three levels of cottages at the dunes—ours on the high ridge, with windows on the back to the woods, which I thought was wonderful except when I needed to use the outhouse in the dark of night. Then I woke someone to go with me, but I refused at an early age to use the chamber pot.

The next mid-level row of cottages was where my secret spot was, and then there were those that nestled up on the high end of the beach, where the grasses began. Every year, one or more of them would just wash into the lake. Erosion was and is a real problem all along Lake Michigan’s shore.

You could not drive to our cottage. We parked in the woods, a mile away, and carried our clothes and food in; you could also walk the beach—which we rarely did—or, oh luxury!—have the park jeep drive you to the foot of your stairs, with all your belongings. This was not a luxury cabin—an outhouse, at first no gas, so the refrigerator as a kind of box on a pulley that we lowered into the cool ground. Once a week, the ice man cometh—to put a huge block of ice in the bottom of the hole. We put milk in the bottom shelf so it would stay cold.

Drinking water came from a pump on the beach and had to be carried up three flights of stairs. Drinking water as therefore precious, and I always remember the nigh we heard a splash—a mouse drowned in our drinking water, wasting a whole bucket. In the cottage we had only cistern water, so Mom would wash dishes and then scald them to rinse. No electricity—kerosene and Aladdin lamps. Dad was always saying, “Turn it down. You’ll burn the mantle.” I don’t know what we would have done in this age of computers and cell phone. The Dunes did not offer a luxury vacation but to this day a piece of my heart is there and I have fond memories.

My dad and some friends owned the cottage when the state of Indiana took it over under eminent domain. Thereafter Indiana leased it to my folks and one other couple until the year my folks retired to North Carolina. For a while the cottages were leased by the weekend, but I guess that proved too difficult because after a few years they tore down all the cottages.

Lake Michigan, sand dunes, and nostalgia

Whenever I feel the need for a place of retreat, I go in my mind to a certain spot in the Indiana Dunes. It was about halfway between the shore of Lake Michigan and our cabin on the top of the ridge. At twilight, you could watch the sun sink behind the skyscrapers of Chicago. Sometimes you could listen to the lake gently push small waves ashore; other times you could hear louder sounds of waves crashing. When storms came, you could watch them roll the length of the lake, to end with whitecaps thundering on shore and sometimes reaching dangerously close to the first level of cabins. I used to go to my favorite spot often with our female collie mix, inappropriately named Timmy,

Our cabin was rough to say the least. No plumbing, no electricity. The front of the house faced the lake; the back, a lovely deep woods—except the outhouse was down the hill in the woods. I hated to go at night, even when my mom went with me. The refrigerator was a box on a pulley, so it sank deep in the ground; once a week, the iceman cometh—literally, to drop a huge block of ice down the hole. You always put the milk in the bottom shelf where it would stay coolest. For lamps we had kerosene or Aladdin, though my dad worried constantly about turning them too high, so we never had enough light to read by at night. But the nighttime smell of the woods and the lake was so tranquilizing—I’m sure I never slept that soundly since.

We had to hike a mile, through the woods, from where we could park our car to the cabin, carrying in clothes, groceries, etc. I think I could find my way through those trails even now, though it was another thing I didn’t like to do at night. The family with whom we shared the cottage walked the beach, but we weren’t really beach people except for swims and baths in the lake. I sunburned easily and after a bout of sunstroke was never again comfortable in the sun. But I loved the woods.

Those days were magic to me, and I am often overcome with longing for them. Sweet corn fresh from the field, buckets full of raspberries for 50 cents—everything tasted better. Today, the state of Indiana has torn down all the cottages—yes, Thomas Wolfe, you really can’t go home again. And I’m not sure I’d feel safe in those woods. But I think everyone needs a retreat to which they can go in their mind. And that’s mine—my spot of refuge and renewal.