I Hate Packing

Even for just 6 days, it’s a pain

Photo by Elaine Tu on Unsplash

Every summer, I go North for a week to visit my two cousins and sister. We were raised pretty much as sisters, although there is an 11 year difference from oldest to youngest. That was a pretty big difference when we were little. Now that the oldest is 80 and the youngest 69, the difference has pretty much disappeared.

We started the tradition at least 10 years ago, as there was a cabin available to us for a weekend every summer. The cabin sits right on the shore of Lake Ontario, which is better than an ocean, because it has no sharks or jellyfish or anything dangerous, but like the ocean, you can’t see across it, so it’s big. Canada is on the other side, but we can’t see it from our house.

Now it’s cousins’ week, because I travel from North Carolina, and that’s not worth the trip for just a weekend. We no longer have a cabin; we now have a trailer, which the cousin who owns it calls the submarine. It’s built for tiny people, and while none of us is tall, we are not tiny people. We come from good peasant stock, and we are built on the round side. Maneuvering around each other takes skill, patience, and some gymnastic moves none of us is limber enough for anymore.

I lived up North for 66 years, so I am not unfamiliar with the weather. I know summer and fall can trade places easily in a…