Feels Like Home

I’ve always had this wanderlust inside of me. A restlessness that simply wouldn’t let go. From my earliest years, I remember the little explorer in me running off to the vast forest behind our family home. That little girl would skip and twirl in the dappled light filtered by a million leaves! Or is it a million and one? She’d try to count them all, lose her place and have to start all over again. Inevitably, she’d tire, pause to rest in a patch of sun and fall asleep from her efforts. The magic of the day would begin in the still of the moment at sunrise. From her bedroom window, she’d watch the sky magically come alive cascading from darkness to deep indigo, to hues of pink, rising in a crescendo of fiery orange! The glow would be heart stopping, then just as suddenly – Poof! Gone in a flash! She’d open her window, to try to catch the magic in her tiny hand. The challenge was to hold on to that magic you see! To carry it with you all day; To blow on a dandelion that had gone to seed and make a wish; To run and catch the end of the rainbow; To live the most each day!

That scraggly patch of forest was barely 100 feet wide behind a row of houses, but to that little girl it was a door to another world! One where a little girl could chase butterflies by day, fireflies by night; watch minnows in the creek, dream of adventures to come and wonder at the beauty of nature all around. As the years passed that little girl would venture further and further afar on skinny scraped legs, by foot or by bicycle. She would follow the stream where the minnows played to where it emptied to the lake.

My lake. That first day I saw it as the sun shone across the dappled waters blindingly, I was smitten. Small cottages and homes dotted its perimeter. A few small boats sat low in the water. The whiz and whir of fishing lines being cast and the call of a loon breaking the silence. A lonely osprey patiently hovering silently overhead, diving suddenly to catch unsuspecting prey.

In spring and summer, local families and groups of teens would assemble at the lake. Teens would dare one another to jump from the town dock. There would be impromptu barbecue parties, food shared around, strangers would become friends over toasted marshmallows and warm conversation. Blankets and drinks would be shared around. Inevitably, everyone would realize they knew someone in common – rural communities are like that you see. Someone would pull out a guitar and camp songs would ring out breaking up the cacophony of bullfrogs mating.

Each winter a shantytown of rack-shambled ice-huts with equally bedraggled characters would appear, seemingly overnight. The party and conversation would begin anew! Friendly joviality and rivalry over the largest fish caught, the most fish caught and over the most bizarre ice hut. And there were many of those! A camper-van turned ice hut, brightly painted wood boxes, rusted tin sheds, even an outhouse-turned ice hut. There were no rules, save stay on thick ice and have fun. Everyone looked out for one another sharing warm thermos drinks, bait and stories. Someone would always shovel a square of ice and a pickup game of hockey for those fish-denied folks would ensue.

Time passed. That little girl grew up; wanderlust would take her to new cities, new places, whether for school, for work, for love! She would go off to college, to explore another city, maybe find love! School would end. Then wanderlust anew would take hold. Perhaps a bigger city offered more! More to do! More to see! More opportunity! New job, better job, bigger city! Travel would call to see the world as breaks from busy workaday life. Short vacations would offer reminders of those moments of magic while watching international sunrises – shades of deep indigo giving way to pinks and golden oranges. Work would become monotonous, love would fade, and that wanderlust would become a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. A once golden world gone grey. Grey concrete, roadways, high-rise apartments and office towers, parking lots and compact neighborhoods. Everything lackluster grey. No sunrises from bedroom windows. No fresh dew-heavy air to welcome in with an open window. No magic.

My furry companion nudges my hand at the keyboard. He reminds me to pause and look out the window. The sun is slowly rising over the lake just out of view. The light slowly chases away an inky blackness that seemed to stretch endlessly only moments before. Mist slowly breaks over the frozen lake revealing trees, rolling landscape, dots of buildings and people on the surface. The shantytown of ice huts has appeared almost overnight. My wanderlust has brought me back here. Home. To my lake. Still largely undeveloped. Still the same collection of ramshackle ice huts, patchwork homes and characters.

A bang and gravelly holler at the door “Come-on! Fish are biting!”

Home is where your heart is. This sunrise. This lake. These people. This is my home and there’s no other place I’d rather be.