Memories at the Lake

Back when I was free

When I was 12 years old, my family took a weeklong lake vacation at Spider lake in Hayward, Wisconsin. We went with our friends, the Maggios. Lisa Maggio was 16 or 17 and I worshiped her. She was the one who had showed me how to properly insert a tampon, and a little about female anatomy, when I mentioned how much it hurt to rip out a dry tampon every time I had to pee. Lisa was beautiful. An Italian with olive skin, black glossy black hair, round breasts and big brown eyes. She was confident and smart and fun to be around. She laughed a lot, and I wanted to be her.

On the first day of our vacation, Lisa invited me into her room. She had her cosmetics lined up on the dresser, and I made a beeline towards them. She had a thick dark red tube of Dr. Pepper Lip Smacker, and she let me use it. When I got back to my cabin, my mom made me wipe it off, claiming the color was too dark. Anything that made me look too grown up — make-up, halter tops, fashion boots — was not allowed in our house.

At least from my perspective, Lisa had an easy-going relationship with her mom. They respected each other and were kind to each other. They laughed and were affectionate. In my family, it was a dictatorship. My mom’s rules were to be obeyed, and if questioned, were met with “because I said so.” I had never heard my mom say she loved me.

I don't recall if this trip was before or after Lisa’s dad, a dentist who was my dad’s best friend, had committed suicide by hanging himself in the basement of his dental office in our hometown. I think it must've been before. On this trip, my image of Lisa was a perfect girl in a loving family, and I got to be a part of this family for the week, as we shared meals and activities together.

For years after the suicide, my dad kept a photo of himself and Paul, smiling at the camera and grabbing each other's hands in Ely, Minnesota, as my dad pulled Paul from a rock onto the shore of the lake. Years later, when my dad found out from Paul's widow that Paul had been sexually abusing his oldest daughter, Amy, my dad took the photo down and never mentioned Paul again.

That trip to Spider Lake was one of the highlights of my childhood. My sister and I, who didn’t always get along, had a blast together, walking the length of the shore, one morning finding a strange fishlike creature floating at the edge of the water. Later someone told us it was a “mudpuppy”, although I couldn't Google it to verify and I've purposely avoided looking it up, preferring to think of it as some magical creature only Susan and I had seen.

This trip was when I was at an age where I didn’t yet hate my body. I was thin and flat-chested, but my disappointment about my lack of a chest didn’t come until a couple of years later. At 12, I still held out hope. My mom’s self-deprecating comments about her chest and body were slowly eating away at my self-esteem, but I hadn’t yet taken on her insecurities.

Because there were lots of people around at Spider Lake, my mom adopted a cheerful and carefree attitude. She never yelled at us or complained to my dad in front of others, so we stayed outside of the cabin all day, running around with a group of kids we met, or splashing in the water.

Being outside was, and is, my happy place. On this trip, we stayed outside all day, ate all our meals outside, and only came in to go to bed. The outside was our kingdom, and we made the rules.

There is a photo of me from that trip, with my arms thrown in the air, as I pretended to slip off a float. I'm wearing my pale blue one-piece swimsuit that was decorated with colorful butterflies. My eyes are closed, my hair is plastered to my head, and I remember thinking “I’m going to look beautiful in this picture.”