My Favorite Place.

As I look back at my life, and where my journey has taken me, I can feel nothing but gratitude. I’ve had the privilege and the honor of traveling the globe and experienced some pretty incredible places.  Lemurs in Madagascar, bioluminescence in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, sloths in Costa Rica, surfing in Hawaii, castles in Romania, hiking the Pyrenees, penguins in Cape Town, the list could take up pages.  It’s truly awesome. 

People often ask me what’s my favorite place in the world? In all my travels, if I could go back to one place, what would it be?

Here.

This little white cabin in central Minnesota.  The Lake.  The place where the vast majority of my favorite childhood memories happened.

I grew up spending summers here, right in between two lakes, with a road full of cousins to play with and adventures to imagine and games to share and turtles to catch and paint and release back into the lake. It’s where auntie Kathy would whistle when it was time for dinner and we’d come from wherever we were and fit around the big table on the screened porch and tell Nana to stop fretting, there’s plenty of food.  We’d celebrate birthdays and open gifts and pile back around the table in the evening to play Tripoley or Seven Up or some other big group game. We’d live in the lake when it was hot, leaving wet splotches and sand when we came into the house for a snack, usually the cut fresh fruit Mom would leave on the counter. The mosquitoes were huge and the thunderstorms loud and the sunsets were beautiful, and we’d fall asleep to the sounds of the loons calling from one lake to another.

We’d have friends visit every year, and the kids would play dress up and put on a show for the adults. We’d go to Paul Bunyan, the local amusement park for kids where the giant statue of Paul would greet each child by name as they walked in the park and it was magical, every single time. There was sailboats and paddleboats and fishing boats and all number of floaties and tubes and toys to play with in the lake. There were turtle races and mini doughnuts and riding on the mechanical horse in front of the The Totem Pole. We’d ask auntie Kathy to help us pull out our loose teeth; she had a magic touch that somehow made it painless.  Uncle Dan would take us for rides on his motorcycle or in the boat or pull us on the tubes or water skis; uncle Peter would throw us around in the water like toys. There would be sweet rolls for breakfast and hamburgers on the grill for dinner and I’m sure it wasn’t wonderful all the time, but looking back on it, all I can remember was the magic of it all.

If the world weren’t upside down, it would be a full house there now; Memorial day weekend, the first long weekend of summer, when the nights were still cool but the days were finally free of the snow boots and coats and hats and mittens that are the norm for the long, long cold winter.  I’d miss my Nana fretting over food but relish in the joy of the next generation of kiddos enjoying it every bit as much as I did as a kid. I planned to go home to Minnesota in August this year, intending to spend at least a week at The Lake, and I’m grieving the loss of the magical time with family that won’t happen this year.  I can only hold on to hope that next year will be different.  In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the memories and the magic and the gift of The Lake, my favorite place in the world.