So….I lost a lake. It could happen to anyone.
I’m taking a Personal Storytelling class, and I want to tell a story to my son about the lake house my paternal grandmother had in Connecticut when I was growing up. We would spend weeks and weeks there every summer. Uncles, aunts, and cousins would all converge on the mid-century modern treasure at the edge of the sparking water with the best screened-in porch in the world housing the best Ping-Pong table ever. I want to tell him about picking blueberries from the wild bushes among all the trees, including the white birches I only ever saw on vacation. I want him to run and jump off the dock with me doing cannonballs into the water and crack open freshwater mussel shells to get bait for fishing the sunnies, perch, pickerel, and bass.
But I’ve run into a huge problem. My memory is fallible, and I have completely fabricated the name of this lake. I am convinced to the marrow of my bones that my grandmother’s house was on Pinehurst Lake. But among the over 3,000 lakes and ponds in Connecticut, there is no such body of water. Google Earth is no help. The office of tourism is no help. And as I also don’t remember the street address of the lake house, I’m going to have to get some help from a live person in some county recorder office (and of course each county has their own property records) to find out if my grandmother owned property in the county. I have to find this lake!
But my fallible memory doesn’t mean I can’t tell my son some stories of lake house adventures. I’m trying very hard to move out of the mindset that my fact-based and personal stories have to be mirror-perfect representations of people, places, and events. There are some things I just can’t know for absolutely, positively sure. I can be true to what I know, research what I don’t know to the best of my abilities, and then tell stories with good intent that are respectful and true to the spirit of the people, places, and events involved. I can work with my imperfect memory, and still tell meaningful stories.
And when I find that missing lake, I’m traveling across the country to take my son for a swim.
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