How do you thank a place for memories?
Giving up Lake Vermilion cabin met with bittersweet reflection
No more late nights around the fire -- but no more frozen pipes either.
By Karen Engstrom Anderson
March 5, 2020 at 8:20PM
Lucky me! I had 60-plus years of making memories at our cabin on Lake Vermilion. My dad, a Swedish immigrant, bought the land when he returned home from World War II because it reminded him of Sweden.
Nestled between the birches on a small bay with 300 feet of shoreline, the place started as a two-room cabin he built himself and became a year-round four-bedroom home where he and my mom retired. Eventually they deeded it to me, their only child. After many years, it became clear I was no longer up to the task of taking care of the place. Finally, it had to be sold.
I signed the papers with silent tears and, truthfully, a weight was lifted. There are things in life for which the balance between the obligations and the joys of ownership cannot be sustained forever. Now it's gone.
No more worrying about how long the grass or how deep the snow is up there. No more sublimely pleasurable early morning cups of coffee sitting on the dock when the lake is like pale-blue glass and the air is completely still. No more endless repairs, high taxes, and utility bills.
No more late nights around the fire pit with friends and family — warm from both fire and camaraderie. No more frozen pipes or emergency calls to the furnace guys on a below-zero weekend. No more saunas and midnight skinny-dipping that make you feel like you'll live forever, and your connection with nature is confirmed by the gazillion stars of the Milky Way and the loons calling out in the dark.
No more concerns with the well or water so hard and full of iron the clothes turn yellow, and your newly washed hair feels like Brillo. No more finding the way home by boat, in the dark, after a long day on the lake — feeling like this is the only place you really, really belong. No more praying that the boathouse will make it another year without collapsing. And ultimately, no more making memories with friends, family and loved ones, that is, at least, on beautiful Lake Vermilion. But new life and new memories, here we come.
Karen Engstrom Anderson, Independence, Minn.
about the writer
Karen Engstrom Anderson
None of the boat’s occupants, two adults and two juveniles, were wearing life jackets, officials said.
