Blessed and Lucky

It was July 2nd or 3rd - who knows, I'd lost track of days anyway - and I was kayaking along the shore of Walloon Lake by myself, blatantly staring at the cottages I passed and noticing the boats docked out front, wondering idly what I'd name a boat if I were ever to own one myself. (I don't actually want a boat at all, ever, but I would like to have a friend or neighbor with a boat that I could ride on whenever I wanted.) Jason and I had recently seen an enormous one in Saugatuck named "Boat," which I loved, but I think I'd name it "Blessed and Lucky." Because, as Annie said to me a day or two later, snugged beside me as we rode on a family friend's borrowed pontoon for the entire afternoon, "It's super-lucky if you have a house on a lake where you can swim off the dock and catch toads and grasshoppers." Indeed.

Our 4th of July getaway up north was basically perfect, minus the fact that we were missing a chunk of family who up and moved downstate a few days before. Aside from missing them, we crammed in all the usual traditions, made a few new ones, reveled in the picture-perfect weather, swam every day, slept in a little, and celebrated a lot. There was a bike ride to Charlevoix to wade in the bay, pie at Jesperson's, a bath in the lake with peppermint soap, night swimming after fireworks, beer on the dock, a long run, steak, a hot and sticky parade, a box of Tom's Mom's cookies shared around a blanket in Harbor Springs, plenty of ice cream, some morning tennis, and swimming. Lots of swimming. Annie learned to dive off the dock, and we introduced the girls to "super diapers," where you put your legs into the arm holes of the lifejackets and float aimlessly in the lake.

We came back, reunited with cousins at Lake Michigan the very next day for some exhilarating wave-jumping, and caught Brandi Carlile with old friends at Meijer Gardens as the sun set on Sunday night, her lovely and impressive voice sending us off into real life again with a Hallelujah encore that gave me chills.

Blessed. Lucky.