NH Summer 2012: The Things We’ve Handed Down

Painting of The Cottage, by my grandfather Carl, sitting in a tiny frame in the eaves of the cottage porch.

I look at my Popop’s paintings of The Cottage (he painted it more than a few times; I am lucky to have one of them hanging in my home), and I am amazed at his capturing of it. This one (above, which stays at The Cottage) is small and rudimentary. But I think I like it the best. It is perfect in its imperfection. That’s a theme for me lately — the perfectness of imperfection.

The cottage isn’t a perfect place. It is very unlike the huge flashy fancy lake houses with manicured lawns and state-of-the-art fixtures that have been built in more recent years (not that those are “perfect,” by any stretch of the imagination, but they do have all the modern amenities that anyone could imagine and — at a minimum — enough beds for the whole family). The Cottage literally and figuratively symbolizes all that has been handed down in our family — all the beauty and strength and incredible achievements of five generations — all that we’ve learned about goodness and grace from those before us — is wrapped up tight with the imperfection handed down in our family too. Our family has struggles and tragedies and failures and hard relationships along with all the good and easy and privilege that we’ve received — we inherit bad things with the good. The Cottage is a reminder of all of this. We can feel that as painful sometimes. I have bad memories of this place, along with the good. And at other times (luckily, for me, it is most of the time), I experience The Cottage as peaceful and soul-soothing. I like the reminder of the imperfection. I can see that it is in the imperfection that we keep going, and in the striving to better ourselves and do right by the next generation that we honor the past. It is in the imperfection that our yearly pilgrimage is so perfect. It is an annual reminder of where we’ve come from and where we’re going.

Three generations (Heather = Generation 4; Meera = Generation 5; MorMor = Generation 3), of the five generations of Johnsons who have been spending summers at The Cottage.

This is a matriarchal lineage– my great-grandfather built it, but then left it for his daughters, who left it for my mom and aunt. Matriarchal, yes. But the fifth generation now looks nothing like the first could have ever imagined, and includes two boys who just may love and appreciate this place more than anyone of any generation before them.