The July heat beats down on me. I lay on the beach with my headphones in and the world tuned out. I am alone but I feel comfortable. The sand slips between my toes as I move my feet to the beat. The cooling waves rise to my feet cooling them from the harsh hot sand. I am in paradise. The summer air warms the cool Vermont water. I forget every worry fear and stress and just relax. I love this place like a person in my family. I treasure every moment I am there, because there is no other place just like it. Lake Champlain has always been a part of my life, and it always will be. My grandparents met on this very lake. They sat on this very beach as kids. My mother spent the first few years of her life here, and now my sister and I spend most of our summers here.
The smell of the air is comforting. The sound of the waves is like a sound I know every word to. The texture of sand is like the texture of my own skin. I love every last thing about here. I love its flaws it perfections, and it meanings. I love that my sister and I had a lot of firsts her. She took her first steps her. She walked across the navy rug with the rope trim and fell onto the rocking chair that was once my great grandfathers. I learned how to swim in the clam filled lake. My father held me up in my nautical Ralph Lauren bathing suit with the matching hat and I doggy paddled to the shallow part of the water. I have grown up here. Every year I take a picture of me at the top of the bank, and every year I change drastically but the bay and the sun stay the same over time.
We own the house that overlooks Mallets Bay. The white house with the black shingle roof and the porches that are completely windows so you can you can see the amazing view from all angles. The view is by far the best thing about my house. From my bedroom you can see the whole entire bay. I can see the sailboats making their journey around the open water, motorboats carrying laughing children on tubes, and the sun moving across the sky. Every Thursday morning my grandfather and I wake up early to watch the sailboat races across the bay. We make our coffees in the sailboat themed mugs and sit on the porch and watches the beautiful colored sails glide across the lake.
We own the house with the nautical theme. The navy curtains with red trim, the seersucker couch with baby blue throw pillows. The kitchen with the navy counters tops and the white ornate cabinets where I cook with my Nana. She teachers me how to cook her recipes that no one else knows and how to make her signature dishes. We are perfectionist; it’s just a trait that runs in the family. We all have our own jobs, I fill in for anything that is simple and that is needed, my mom cuts the vegetables and bread, my Nana is like the captain of the team and my grandfather put everything on the grill or oven. The rest of the family is like the spectators! After the hectic task of dinner we all sit down and relax for a great meal.
We own the house with its own private beach. The family all sits down there, sometimes together and sometimes we just go down when we feel like it. There are no crowded areas, no dogs, no distractions, just you and the wondrous lake. The rocky sand slides between my toes the surprisingly warm Vermont sun beams down upon me. When I am her time stops. I turn off my phone and just lay there thinking about everything. I let the wind blow my hair up and the water cool my hot feet. I let memories of past times on the beach seep into my mind and I reminisce by myself. My parents join me and I laugh about the funny things I used to do down on the beach. My attempts of being a badminton player, when I thought I could drive a boat or row the boat to the dock and got stuck and the times I told my parents I wanted to live in the wooden, worn down boat house amuse all of us.
We own the house with the best very of the sunset. When the sun begins to fall, we are entranced by its rays. As night falls the sky turns a dull pink and burnt orange. My mom and I lay one the navy mesh chairs silently. The clam water reflects the sun’s shadow casting a sunny haze on the water. Sailboats that have been anchored for the night rock atop the waves. The subtle sound of water against boats breaks the silence. Day suddenly falls to night and the moon appears. Then my mom and I make our way back up the bank to our house. I have made this our tradition, the picture of the sun falling behind the green mountains will forever be engraved in my mind.
We own the house that has a story for everything. The curtains that I break in my bedroom in every summer because I try to open they is my little secret. The back stairs we put in because we knew we were having visitors. The one creaky stair that tells everyone in the house someone woke up. The boat that broke outside of the water for no reason that was in the family for years. The old boat house that my mother tried to paint pink when she was a child that we took down creates something missing for the beach. The tree that I once swag on as a child now droops to the ground. Times have changed her. Neighbors move, the scenery changes, the sand on the beach is softer, the water levels are higher, but the one thing that will never change here is the memories my family shares. We will always own the house on top the bank.