The vacation is often the highlight of a kid's summer. Years later when we are on the planning end of that vacation we realize the pain connected with the pleasure. Of course, a family vacation means you are spending exclusive and intense time with your family. Since this causes all those familial interactions to compress into a tight space, emotion and meaning are ramped up.
I forget the exact assignment this came from, but this story was for my Creative Non-fiction class. It may have been to write about a significant family event, or maybe I'm just saying that to convince myself I fulfilled the intent of the project. Either way, I was not quite sure where this piece would go when I wrote it, though many of the images described are still fresh in my mind. Lake Gage is so ingrained in my memory that, decades after we stopped going, certain sounds and smells will take me right back there. It was only years later, when I came to understand the nuances of relationships, that I realized what was going on around me.