Grand Hotel

"Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens." 

-       Ending line of the classic film Grand Hotel

 

When my wife’s parents built this place back in 1974, they called it “the cottage.” Though larger than our image of that descriptive word, we still call it the cottage. Throughout the summer (and rarely, but sometimes in Fall, Winter, Spring), my wife and her two brothers and our extended families and friends pass through, much like guests at a grand hotel. They come. They go. And nothing ever happens. 

 

The waters of Lake Michigan lap against the beach as they have for millennium, the ladybugs and fruitflies and biting flies come and go, the fishing boats dot the seascape each morning and evening and as noted yesterday, the town’s library and post-office and restaurants and 5 & 10 stores and ice cream parlors and more open the doors each day as they have for the half-a-century I’ve been visiting. 

 

And yet, everything changes.We who gather each August (sometimes July) re-visit the traditions listed in yesterday’s post and on the surface, it’s the same moments lived yet again. But if the land and the town barely change, one thing is certain— we do. 

 

This morning I climbed the Sugar Bowl sand dune as I do each year and yes, I got to the top. But my 74 years showed up in the three times I paused while ascending and feeling out-of-breath when I reached the top. Meanwhile, 10-year old Malik scampered up and then jumped into the lake to swim on the way back. Almost 14-year old Zadie chose not to come down to say goodbye to the beach where at 4-years-old, she used to walk at the water’s edge chattering to herself, so happy. My own kids who used to do the same now in their 40’s and experiencing the same places and activities from their own place in life’s grand cycle. So it goes on.

 

This morning, my daughter Kerala and Zadie and Malik drove away, on their way to Chicago to catch their flight back home. All the rooms except one in our little Grand Hotel are empty for two nights until the next guests come. It is again a hot day—up to 80— with higher winds (35mph) than usual and waves in the lake. Two days of relative solitude, divided between taking care of all the business I’ve been putting off and sinking deeper into Summer’s grace, with nowhere to go and nothing to do and happily so. It feels a little harder these days to re-kindle that childlike mind, to be at peace and wholly immersed in the life where “nothing ever happens” amidst the hustle and bustle in the hotel lobby. But I need it and value it. That return to the unconditional state of “Isn’t Life grand?!”

 

Wish me luck.