Lake-side bliss: a pocket of joy...

In our earlier days of cottage ownership, summer meant spending eight of my nine weeks (!) of vacation time at our beautiful spot by Lake Winnipeg. Each summer's highlight was my parents' visit. Val and I got along very well with them and, as a foursome, we thoroughly enjoyed our times together. 

This summer, one particular memory stands out in my mind and I am happy to share it here. You have seen the photo before, but the story is new. I submitted it (unsuccessfully) to a journal that had asked for short-form creative nonfiction pieces describing “pockets of joy” — those small moments of pure joy-filled emotion that last in our memory long after they have passed through time. 

I like the story — and I love this memory. 

August 2010 at Clifftop Cottage, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba

Lake-side bliss: a pocket of joy...

That afternoon spent in the yellow chairs overlooking the lake was golden and I wanted it to last forever. 

The languid laziness of the minutes slipping into hours as we read our books, shared snippets of conversation, and occasionally remarked on the view — the calm lake, the blue sky, the warm sunshine — all this made that August day of my parents’ first cross-country visit to our new cottage pure bliss. 

We were together, there was nowhere else to be, it was perfect. Perfection punctuated by the extravagance of the “short dark pick-me-up” of strong black coffee topped with a generous scoop of French vanilla ice cream served lakeside, where calories don’t count. 

Though my parents returned several times more before my father died a few years later, no more perfect an afternoon was ever achieved. 

It was a one-time thing, all the more memorable for its spectacularly ordinary yet wildly special quality. 

A pocket of joy, indeed.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.