I'm back after two wonderful weeks of vacation at Mousam Lake in Maine. It's our 17th summer in the same camp on this lake, the one where my wife, Elizabeth, summered for ten years as a kid.
Her camp disappeared when her parents divorced. We've been fortunate enough to return every year since 1991 to a different, but still modest camp in a small cove. There's no phone line or cell coverage. Internet? Hah! The oven hardly works, the plumbing and septic encounter problems regularly, and the house is about 1/3 the size of our regular home.
But we love it. The quiet. The smell of the fresh pine every, everywhere. The beautiful, silky fresh water of the lake. I take long (for me) 40-minute swims, and the water just slides off me like butter on a hot pan.
Mousam also offers the sky. Big and brilliant, filled with the blue you wish you could see everyday. Or the bald eagle we've seen for the last two years. Every year, whether I am water-skiing or wakeboarding, I catch myself looking upward and admiring the simple, broad beauty of the sky. In its vastness, sometimes we can find ourselves.
There is also the sheer joy of play. It comes in all forms: board games at night, wiffle ball in the afternoon, and impromptu, made-up games at all hours. I traditionally play two games with the all of the kids: "Monster," a modified version of world championship water wrestling, complete with special voices and lots of fake action; and "Man-Hunt," a fancy game of tag that pits me against everyone under the age of 17. All of it contributes to a culture of fun, where people try to do well but ultimately realize that participation matters more than the outcome.
Witness the picture above of young Jacob Glenshaw. It comes from our annual catch-the-football-off-the-dock competition. You won't get drafted by the Patriots if you do well in this game, but gosh darn, it is fun. This year we added a few new categories, including can-you-catch-two-balls-at-once? We got some great photographs, but no one managed to do it. Next year!
The other key piece to vacation, I've realized, is a chance to step away from the Internet. For the next 50 weeks, I will be online and available to everyone virtually all of the time. But during vacation on Mousam Lake, I step away from the world of constant contact. The world continues to spin and things get done, and, yes, sometimes, I make work-related phone calls during vacation. But they are few. Unplugging is good, both for me and the rest of the world.
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