The nostalgia of place

One of my first memories is of trying to climb that damn rock–searching for the best indents or curves to place my bare,  kid-sized 7 feet. My cousin and I would grip our toes into the rough texture, curling them to try and create some momentum to raise our bodies upwards. My hands would burn from the tiny cavities of debris I had scraped them against.

The goal was always this: find a new “path,” a not predetermined or predicted route. On days when we succeeded, crouching low on the rock’s plateau was freeing. On other afternoons, we were just as satisfied with the amusement that resulted from the failed efforts, which was usually falling to the grass or hopping in the lake to cool off. After all, no matter what, there was a flat rock just across the way, where we could lay on our towels and relax, swatting at hornetts and batting at the red ants who’d come to encroach upon our pale little limbs.

Here’s the other thing: the rock was hardly 6 feet tall (at least that’s how I remember it). Today, my eyes might even fall even with its once-daunting peak. It wasn’t so much that we were climbing a mountain; we were taking baby steps–literally. We were starting small, knowing our limits, challenging ourselves just enough.

Writing about a place you’ve been going for 20 years is like trying to write about your best friend: you want to show and critique it fairly, but ultimately, you so badly want others to understand the impact it’s had on you. How much you grew and learned from that one specific location.

I went back there for July 4th, and it was everything and nothing I expected all at once. It’s only been a year and a half since my last hoorah at Lake Winnipesaukee, but, in that year and a half, and particularly the past 4 months, so much has changed.

It’s weird to be somewhere dictated by family memories, when a family is something ever-evolving too. For years, this place was “Nana and Papa’s.” Now, it hardly feels like that same childhood memory.

Places aren’t stationary like a rock. They change just like the people who inhabit them. And we’re left to find a new way route forward, a new way up.