From Mary Pipher's "Seeking Peace"

from:

A story of a Buddhist who developed Alzheimer's:

"He retired from teaching because of his unreliable memory. He made one exception; for a reunion of his former students. When he walked onto the stage, he forgot everything, even where he was and why. However, he was a skilled Buddhist and he simply began sharing his feelings with the crowd. He said, "I am anxious. I feel stupid. I feel scared and dumb. I am worried that I am wasting everyone's time. I am fearful. I am embarrassing myself."

After a few minutes of this, he remembered his talk and proceeded without apology. The students were deeply moved, not only by his wise teachings, but also how he handled his feelings."

More on The Cottage

This is today's lakeside view ... The cottage was a duplex when my family owned it. The open porch side here was the Laughlin's side.

Hurricanes are rare in this area, but wind is not.

Windy days that kept us out of or off of the lake were good for going into town. Nearest town is Brechin, small then and now. We got our ice there. Beaverton is next largest and about 10 miles away. We had relatives living near there, the lumber yard was there, and they had a 5&dime for windmills, all-day suckers, water floats and such fun things. Wider range shopping could be done in the small city of Orillia about 20 miles one way. I always liked to go along when the family went there. I took no part in the shopping for supplies except to pick out cutout doll or coloring books. I still remember getting lost in a variety store in Orillia. We often went to Champlain Park for a picnic as part of the trip.

Cut-out dolls were big in my sit down and be quiet play choices, but they were fragile. One time we didn't have enough commercial paper dolls to go around for my friends who'd come over. The wind was whipping up white caps on the lake so we were sitting on a blanket out of the wind on the road side of the cottage. My grandmother (Olive Cowie) came up with a creative idea She gave us some of her old magazines, scissors, glue, crayons, paper, and cardboard. We were to look through the magazines, find models with full body photos and cut them out, paste them on cardboard, then design and color our own clothes for them, remembering to make tabs to fit over their shoulders and waists. We came up with some pretty cute stuff. Future Coco Chanels? I don't think so, but it was fun and diverting.

more next posting...

The Cottage on Lake Simcoe

This is how the cottage looks today. A new family owns it.


The entry was enclosed when I was a girl; it was my grandparent's bedroom. Off and on over the years I've written about my cottage. Here's some of my latest musings about it:

From 1943 when I was a baby of seven months until I was a teenager in the late fifties, I spent the summer months at our family's cottage on Lake Simcoe, Brechin Beach, Ontario, Canada.


Each summer, as I grew, I loved the cottage more. I was always a place of freedom and fun. When the sun was shining and the lake was calm and the water reflected the sky, my friends from neighboring cottages and I, would swim and play like river otters. Some of my friends tanned brown as stained wood but my fair skin, especially shoulders, forehead, nose, and tops of ears, would burn, blister, peel, then start the process over. One year, Grandfather built this barrel raft for us. We anchored the raft with a rope tied to a big rock just beyond the sandbar where we could stand up. Beyond this point, the bottom drops off rather steeply into what we called, "the deep beyond." We would dive off this side for 'pearls', which in fact were white stones I collected from the shore. I am still a complusive white stone picker-upper. On the sandbar side, toward the beach, we played tag and other water gymnastics. We often had days and days of this good swimming weather. We came out of the water when we were called in for meals and on parental orders had to wait an hour before we could go back in.



However, Lake Simcoe is large and has many moods. Winds comes up quickly and calm water rises into impressive white caps. Trees bend, shiver, and sway. Clouds scurry by or they bunch up in dark gray ceilings. Storms pour in and drive us indoors.
One summer we had a hurricane pass over. I'll never forget the still center of that storm. The wind had blown furiously, breaking tree limbs fell on our boathouse and cottage. Waves soared up and over the well. Suddenly it stopped. The light was greenish then turned golden. It was so still. Finally, we heard the wind coming again. The sky grew dark and the fury returned for another hour before the whole thing passed.