Last weekend, we hung out with our cousins up to Claudette and Roger’s camp on Moose Megantic Lake. We try to do this once a year, just for the heck of it. Not all of us can make it, usually, but this year it was a full boat. What a hoot!
Sure, some things have changed. Instead of talking about what we used to talk about (which honestly, I can’t quite remember what that was), we talk about retirement, grandchildren, and, if we’re lucky enough to still have them, our aging parents. We may even engage in an organ recital. That’s when we describe our aches and pains and replacement parts (new hip, knee or shoulder). Instead of looking at envelopes of loose photos, we take turns squinting at our smart phones, trying to find that great shot we just have to share if we didn’t erase it by mistake. We travel more, drink less booze, and more decaf.
But some things stay the same. We still overeat. My God, do we ever! There were enough pies and cookies there to give Thanksgiving a run for its money! Here it is Monday, and I’m still full. And you know what? It was worth every tasty, fat-filled bite.
Mostly, though, we sit on their magical screened-in-porch, looking out at the lake and tell stories: about our childhood together, hunting and fishing, weddings and funerals. We fill in gaps in each other’s memories and, sometimes just sit in silence, listening to the lake. But not for long.
In our gang, you want to get the chuckles going, just bring up the Catholic church. Michael goes, “My parents told me that if I ever went into a Protestant church, then got hit by a bus, I’d go to straight to hell.”
“Right!” says Paul. “Sister Clémence told me the same: that if I did anything bad and got hit by a bus, I’d go to hell. Didn’t make me stop doing bad stuff, of course, but it did make me very cautious around buses!”
“Remember when we used to play church?” Rosie asks. “And we’d all fight over who was going to be the priest?”
“Monique always won.”
“You betcha!,” Monique chimes in. “Because I used animal crackers for communion wafers.”
“Better than Guy’s Saltines.”
“Hey,” Guy says, “I didn’t want to waste my animal crackers on all of you. I only got one box a week!”
“Okay, okay,” Stephanie chimes in. “You know how in the kitchen you have two towels, right?”
“One for the dishes and one for your hands.”
“Right! Well, did anyone’s family have a name for them?”
“Sure: ‘dish towel’ and ‘hand towel.’”
“In our house, our mother called the towel that you only use on the dishes the ‘Virgin Mary towel.’ And the other one, that’s the ‘Mary Magdalene towel.’”
“Come on!”
“No way!”
“Oh, my God! I’ve never heard that!”
“Try explaining that to your Protestant husband. A guy who never got the separate towel thing to begin with. Right, Joe?”
“Nope. Towel’s a towel. I dry my hands on both of ‘em.”
“Sacrilege!!” we shout.
At times like this, it seems to me that home is not so much an actual place as a feeling. Don’t get me wrong: I love Maine and our double-wide and all that. But being with folks that I have a shared history with, who look at things in a similar way, who are familiar and comfortable with each other, that’s a wonderful thing. I see a someone’s gesture out of the corner of my eye, and remember my mother. I hear a French expression, and I’m transported back to one of them lazy days of fishing with my grandfather. I know that I could be anywhere with these people, in New York city or the middle of the Mohave desert, and I’d still feel right at home. ‘Course, it’s an extra bonus that I’m up to Claudette and Roger’s camp on Moose Megantic Lake, hanging out with some of my favorite people. It don’t get much better than that!
That’s it for now. Catch you on the flip side!
Hear Ida Tell It: Hanging With the Cousins