Sometimes it’s just one note of a song. Or a whiff of that certain scent. Maybe a glimpse. What elicits a memory? Where do they really live? Only in the murky recesses somewhere in the head? Or do shimmering wavelengths of what we felt, what we thought, what we did, somehow melt into the places where they happened. Can they leak out of their hiding places when we return to those spots, adding three-dimensional sensations to the movies in our minds? I have no idea. But certain places feel like that to me…
I wasn’t one of those people whose childhood experiences laid the foundation for a life master plan. The truth is, while growing up, I didn’t have much practice in goal-setting. My parents did not model best practices for an organized approach to the future. When I was young, they led what I’d call a reactive life, always responding to some crisis or other. Sometimes that was okay but the “we have a problem” approach didn’t lend itself to long-range planning. Interestingly enough, later on in my teen years, my dad was constantly harping on the necessity of having “a plan,” a true irony as for the longest time, there was no evidence he’d ever made one. And he wasn’t really specific about just how these plans were devised. I realized that for many years, despite that admonition in my head, I was winging my life in the same way as my folks had.
My dad had a number of jobs until he finally settled into a secure position in his mid-forties. My mom worked occasionally, but had nagging health issues that usually caused her to quit her jobs. As a result of their economic challenges, our family of six experienced years of struggle. I knew that other people lived differently. My school friends went to overnight camps during the summer. They went to far-away places for family vacations. Both of my older siblings had moved out of our apartment before we ever went anywhere other than visiting our grandparents and one uncle who lived in Chicago like we did. When I was twelve and my younger sister ten, somehow my parents managed a road trip to Mackinac Island. A real family vacation. We stayed overnight in a couple of motels and ate at diners. The first time I was served hot buttered toast I felt so rich, so privileged. After so many years, restaurant toast still evokes luxury to me. I remember us buying huge, juicy purple cherries at roadside fruit stands which we ate in the car, and I can smell the earthy scent of the horses pulling the carriages on the island, still the only transportation mode allowed on Mackinac. But that trip was a one-off. In my family we didn’t build memories around shared adventures away from home. Most memories were created within the walls of our various third-floor apartments, hotter than hell in the steamy Chicago summers.
Except for a high school trip to Expo ‘67 in Montreal following my junior year, that Mackinac Island trip was the only vacation away from home that I ever had during my childhood. Money was always an issue and throughout college, not much changed until January, 1972. With $200 and a few free months, I hitchhiked my way around several European countries with a couple of friends, discovering the wonders of being elsewhere. When I moved in with Michael upon my return from that first big adventure, his quite different early life experiences would set the tone for future travel. His family took numerous trips while he was growing up, annual visits to his two sets of grandparents who lived in Ohio and Florida, along with visits to places like Washington, D.C. and Gettysburg. In college he was off on tropical spring breaks, scooting around Florida and the Bahamas. Early on in our relationship, we cruised around on long driving trips in our shaky vehicles, combining sightseeing with camping for affordability. I loved being on the move. But after roaming around together for almost ten years before we had kids, the next kind of vacations we took were the more sedentary kind, going to a particular spot and parking ourselves in a place where families could have a good time.
For many years in the early ‘90’s, we spent our summer vacations with old friends and their families at a small lake in Michigan. These were the kind of traditional experiences that I never had while growing up. The comfort of knowing where we would go, with people we knew to do the same things we loved was great for our little family. But eventually, we shifted away from those gatherings. Our son, the youngest in that Michigan group, felt uncomfortably detached from most of the older kids and no longer looked forward to that annual sojourn. So when everyone wanted to put down roots in that area for the future, we stepped back. In the winters, we usually visited my in-laws in Florida. After my relationship with them soured, there was a period of years when Michael made that same trip with our kids while I stayed home. After a time, he too grew estranged from his parents, so the two of us stayed behind while the kids went off to see their grandparents. The two of us wound up looking for a different getaway during the winter holidays, just a couple of days somewhere, fairly close to home, which wouldn’t be outrageously expensive. And that’s when our trips to Starved Rock began.
We loved the opportunity to recharge our weary internal batteries, just the two of us, but after a while, the kids wanted to come along for the swims in the snowy woods. Grateful that they still enjoyed our company, we began squeezing in short trips during their winter breaks. Starved Rock was only about an hour and a half drive away from home. We could quickly get that wonderful sense of being away, almost instant gratification. When we started going there as a family we had teenagers instead of little kids, people who were more self-sufficient and less likely to tangle with each other. So for the most part, we enjoyed a peaceful, relaxing time. I still vividly remember our winter of 2000 trip. Just a few minutes before we arrived at the park, snow began drifting down, big fluffy flakes. We dropped our bags in our rooms and went down to the big indoor pool which was surrounded by windows on three sides. Swimming around in a warm room in the midst of what became a blizzard was unforgettable.
That particular trip was also memorable because one night as we shared dinner, Michael informed the kids that he was switching careers after twenty-seven years as the co-owner of a beloved campus record store. I can still see their shocked faces, lit up by the nearby fireplace. Having a dad who knew seemingly everything about music, especially the kind they liked, was a source of pride for them. In addition they only knew their dad’s work life in the one way which had encompassed their entire lives. Our son looked at Michael across the table and asked, “are you going to become one of those dads who drinks beer all day and lays on the couch watching game shows?” I’ll never forget that moment.
The years went by. We didn’t always take as many photos of each trip but we tried to get that picture-perfect winter respite as a family every year that we could. As the kids evolved, so did the configuration of our group. In what seemed like only a short time, our daughter married and had children. Our son was joined twice by a significant other. We brought the grandkids along with us when they were small.
Michael developed cancer in 2012, had a year-long remission and began chemotherapy at the end of 2013. Between rounds of treatment, we were all back in Starved Rock.
As Michael went through a health rollercoaster ride, we managed to get back to our winter respite at the end of 2014 and once more in December of 2016. When he died the following May, I wasn’t sure I could ever go back to Starved Rock. I worried that I would only feel his absence and a huge sadness that would shake my hard-fought balance in the life I’d built for myself.
But as time passed, I missed that restorative little trip, tucked away in the woods, surrounded by nature noises with the extra luxury of swimming every day in the pool that felt outside, despite the snow and frigid temperatures. In January, 2023, my son, now married and a dad, suggested that maybe I was ready for a little emotional risk, in addition to his fulfilling his own desire to share an important part of his life with his wife. So off we went. Despite my trepidation, I was relieved to feel a flood of only the best and most positive memories of our many wonderful times in this proverbial home-away-from home.
Maybe our shared moments with people we love leave remnants of themselves in the actual physical environments where they occur. Sounds a little far-fetched, I know. Maybe I have an imagination so vivid that I’m projecting myself into these spaces and dragging everyone with me. All I know is that I’m glad I got past the anxiety about this place so I could enjoy it again, even if there’s always that empty space where I wish Michael would be, in the flesh instead of the dreamy way. I also realize, that despite not having the roadmap of a master plan in front of me when I began my adult life, that Michael and I created the kind of experiences in our family that I always wished I’d had. That my children cherish those times is everything to me.
Anyway, last year was so great, we managed to repeat the trip this year. Will it again become an annual event? Who knows? But if I go back again, I’m certain that the visceral memories will still be there to greet me. Even though I don’t exactly understand how they really work…
