We live here now

We started visiting Birch Lake here at Harshaw, Wisconsin, some 25 years ago, when son Todd was three and daughter Sonya six. As of Friday, June 28, we live here full-time, in a house on a hill straight across the lake from the rental cottage where we spent a week each summer, usually during the week bridging July and August.

It was amazing how much of myself I used to invest in those one-week vacations, Saturday afternoon to the following Saturday morning. I saved vacation time like a miser to protect that full week. I looked forward to the vacation at Jung's Cottages; just after the first of I would begin counting the months, weeks and days -- as did wife Noelle and the kids.

Of course, the weeklong stays at Lakeside cottage flew by. I would play in the water with the kids, take them on hikes of canoe rides, read two or three good books, sneak out early mornings and dusky evenings for some walleye fishing. It was incredibly restful and restorative, but never nearly long enough.

Saturday's arrival meant unpacking (most of which Noelle did while I hit the beach with the kids). Sunday began with a trip into town to buy the week's groceries and have breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty in Minocqua -- that took care of half the day. After that we jealously guarded our time lakeside, making just a couple of side trips to town for a restaurant meal or a little shopping.

I counted the days down like a poor man watching the last of the food supply. By Wednesday evening, after fishing until dark, I would enter the mope mode, as only one full cottage day remained (Friday evening being tied up with packing the suitcases and pulling the boat out of the water. Leaving by Saturday's 9 a.m. checkout time involved physical pain; I would not see this place or any like it for another year.

Now, here we are. The dynamic of course is all different. We're no longer tourists -- I go to work daily (in a home office). There are mundane chores to do. Dental and haircut appointments to make. Trash to put out. Car maintenance. Yard work (only the minimum -- we planned a "freedom landscape"). Decks to stain. All the usual things it takes to run a life.

And the sense of urgency is gone. I no longer feel compelled to wring every minute of enjoyment from living lakeside. If I skip an evening's fishing, there's always tomorrow. We'll see how this experiment in Northwoods living goes. I loved the Manitowoc/Two Rivers area, from where we came, and life along Lake Michigan. I know I'll miss the friends I left behind. The fact is, though, I've always wanted to try living at this latitude, and so has Noelle.

So here we are. Will it be everything we dreamed of? Or will we come to take it all for granted -- familiarity breeding indifference? Time will tell. One day, week and month at a time.