The Lake Where You Live

We’re just back from a Thanksgiving visit with daughter Sonya, son-in-law Chad, and grandsons Tucker and Perrin. We go to see them because Sonya’s work schedule as a chef precludes the visits to grandma’s house on the holiday.

This morning, as light snow dusts the fringe of ice around Birch Lake, life feels lonely. November is plain bleak, the lake uninviting, the trees bare, the grass brown, the last wildflowers long shriveled and died. Meanwhile the days progressively shorten. 

More to the point, November is when I’m prone to question why, after all, we live here. The pleasures of lake life stand in suspension, and I long for more time with family. We’re only a few hours from Sonya and from son Todd and partner Renee, but as the Christmas season approaches the distance feels like a chasm. 

As I sit in the recliner watching snowflakes through the lake-facing windows, I remember the grandsons’ most recent visit here, in August just before school started. Out of the blue, Tucker remarked, “I like home better.” As well a healthy pre-adolescent boy should, but I couldn’t resist asking him why. 

His response: “There’s more local interaction.” Meaning he enjoys school, is building a circle of friends, looks forward to his weekly guitar and piano lessons. While Tucker watched a cartoon on TV, I slid in beside him on the leather sofa and asked a hypothetical: “What if Grandma and I moved to Plymouth, but then you couldn’t come to Birch Lake anymore? Would you like that?”

He turned to me a little sad-eyed, and said, simply, “No.” I didn’t ask to play on his feelings. I asked because I wanted to know. I often wonder whether seeing the boys regularly, going to holiday programs at school, babysitting for Sonya and Chad’s date night, would outweigh the arguably selfish pleasures of living on a northern lake. 

At the same time, Tucker’s “no” reminded me that the boys’ affection for the lake is a big reason Noelle and I want to stay. They love fishing, paddling their child-size bright-green kayaks, and running and jumping off the pontoon boat into chest-deep water at the end of our pier. In winter there’s skating on the frozen lake and high-speed hurtles on plastic sleds down the steep, snow-packed end of Art Thompson Road. Moving would erase those interludes of their childhood.

We also need to consider our son and daughter: Birch Lake has been a part of their lives since Sonya was six and Todd was three. If we sold out and moved away, we sever their ties to an important cache of memories.

Ted Rulseh resides on Birch Lake in Harshaw and is an advocate for lake protection and improvement. His Lakeland Times and Northwoods River News columns are the basis for a book, “A Lakeside Companion,” published by The University of Wisconsin Press. Ted may be reached at [email protected].