Reclaiming the Cabin and "The Lake"

Excerpted from the book:

In July of 2000 my children and I joined my parents at our lake cabin in the Catskill Mountains of NY State. I’d been going here since I was a small child, and it was and is beyond beautiful. A small but gorgeous lake, with huge trees and incredible views. The smell of pines fills the air. It’ heaven on Earth. A place I had come to not only love, but where I could explore. Where I could see nature and wildlife in pristine surroundings.

The visit in 2000 was without my wife. It was just me and my children on this trip. I have a video tape of it. It’s something to this day I can’t even watch.

The cabin is a small and rustic structure built by my mother’s parents in 1956. Two years before I was born. There are two bedrooms separated by paper-thin walls. A small living room with the best view on the planet, overlooking the lake. A shower stall and a bathroom that you have to fight over in the morning. A kitchen with small appliances to fit it’s tiny size, and an ancient Oak drop leaf table, that has seen a lifetime’s worth of family meals. A refrigerator that serves as a place to store provisions, but more importantly, to hang photos on. There’s a rack near the door for the fishing rods. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves sit as witnesses to our joy and camaraderie on the fireplace mantle. A fireplace made of “bluestone”, a sand bearing slate-like rock native to the area, and bluish-gray in color. A fireplace that has warmed countless chilly mornings. For me, my parents, my mother’s parents, my brother and his wife and family, guests and friends, girlfriends and boyfriends, and all of those who ever spent a cold night in this place.

We would spend summer vacations there as a family when I was growing up. The place is filled with antiques and knick-knacks and all sorts of memorabilia. It still has the same things I remember as a child. I can remember the times I woke up my father early in the morning to go fishing.

The walks through the woods. The incredible smell of enormous conifers and pines and the sweet smell of the lake wafting through them.

Wading in the water, barefoot, and turning over stones to see what was underneath. To this very day, I can go there and find and turn over the very same rocks under the water that I turned over as a child, 40 years ago. I can pick them out by their shape and location. They haven’t changed.

Taking the rowboat out and going fishing.
Seeing the Milky Way at night from the dock and watching meteors streak across the heavens.

I brought my High School girlfriend here 35 years ago. We made love on the bed that still sits in one of the bedrooms.

There are photographs of an entire lifetime posted on the refrigerator and on the mirrors in the bedrooms. Calendars from years gone by still hang on the backs of doors, as if to mark the passage of time, and the people who came, enjoyed and left, only to come back, again and again.

It was and is the last remaining piece of my life that has remained virtually unchanged for my entire life.

One memory of this place would come to turn my world completely upside-down.
When I returned home from the cabin that summer in July of 2000, I was greeted with the revelation that my wife was having an affair. From that moment on, I then associated the cabin and the lake not with all the wonderful things that had gone before, but with being there while she made love to another man. When my world was torn apart.

I would not visit that place for another eight long years as a result.
In the spring of 2008, I decided to go back. It was time. I had been away too long. I had been foolish. How could I let something so transient destroy the memories of what I loved? I couldn’t. So, I went back to the cabin. The feeling I had as I pulled into the drive and near the place was overwhelming. I was back. I was back where I belonged, and I was going to make it mine again.

So many things…indeed, virtually everything was still as I remembered. The very same lamps, tables and, chairs. The same kitchen table where my mom and dad and I spent what seemed like a thousand summers enjoying the weather, the food, the surroundings, the good times.

When I walked into the cabin, I was not prepared for the emotion.
I saw dozens of pictures on the fridge. My kids when they were small. Me, a much younger man, holding up a prize fish with pride. My brother with his wife and children. My mom holding one of their pet cats and rowing a boat in the lake. So many scenes. So many memories. It had been so long.

It’s a tradition of sorts for all of us to leave something to remember the visits we have there for other family members to see and share, and for ourselves, to recall the happy times for earlier visits. In the course of over 50 years now, there are a lot of moments there. It’s like walking into the past and seeing it all over again. You live it. Again.

All at once I was flooded with the recollections of a lifetime. The power of those memories, flowing now like a tidal wave, unstoppable, was so completely overwhelming. I sat at the table and the tears just started pouring. It all came back to me. All at once.

I can still picture my mother at the stove and telling me and my children to go shuck the fresh corn that we picked up at a local farmer’s market stand. The dinners being served as the sun hung low in the sky casting a golden yellow on the water just outside the window. The warm breeze blowing in through the open windows as we sat there enjoying delicious foods that always tasted better when we were at the lake.

As heart wrenching as it was to be back there, it was liberating. I loved this place. I adored it. It was so precious to me. I was so angry with myself for having waited so long to return. Now that I was back, I was going to go as often as I could. I made trip after trip back there this year. I reconnected with it. I made it my own. I called my mother to tell her all about it. How I was loving it there and so glad being back. She was so happy for me. She too loved this place so dearly. She was so happy that I had returned and that I had reclaimed this place as mine.
Later that year, in October, I went to photograph the incredible colors of Autumn in the Catskills. It was cold, but beautiful. That visit would turn out to be the last time I called my mom from the cabin to tell her how things were, and how I was so enjoying being there. She was so happy that I did go back, and that I spent many days there during the year.

I would never get another chance to hear her voice on the phone, from the place she so dearly loved.

The cabin. On Somerset Lake.

When I went back in 2009, my mom was already gone. This time, going inside for the first time that year, in May, it was even more heart-wrenching. She was gone. I wouldn’t be calling her to tell her how things were at the lake, and to chat about the goings-on, or the neighbors, or if I was getting nice photographs. To this day, I will wake up and think to call my mom about something going on in my life, and in that split second, I forget that she is no longer here. Then, I remember, and I grieve all over again.

These visits back to the cabin would end up being a huge turning point in my life. I realized then and there that what I wanted to do was to end up living here. That somewhere down the road, not too long from now, I wanted and needed to call this place my home. It’s not only the most gorgeous place on Earth, it’s the last remaining constant of my entire life.

A connection with every phase of my life. A link to memories and times that I can recall the instant I am inside that cabin, or on the lake. A powerful nexus that hold the pieces of my life together for me.

Everything else I had is gone. My childhood home, my own home, my marriage and my intact family. They are but memories now.

At The Lake, I still have me. And all the things that made me who I am, in so many ways.

They still live there.

That’s why I need to.