The beauty of returning
Family20.08.2025
We started coming to the cottage six years ago. An island on the lake. Just the four of us.
It was never meant to be a tradition. At least, I don’t remember deciding it would be. But somehow, every summer, the same small pilgrimage happens: the boat ride over, the unloading of groceries, the moment we step onto the dock and everything else falls away.
Life here moves differently. Mornings stretch out, unhurried. The air smells faintly of pine and coffee, and the lake outside our window lies still enough to mirror the sky. Some mornings we paddle, gliding across water that feels endless. Other mornings we linger in pajamas, reading or talking, with no clock keeping score.
The days aren’t spectacular in the way vacations are supposed to be. There are no grand events, no orchestrated adventures. Instead, there are swims that end with hair tangled. There are late-afternoon naps when the sun and wind have made us heavy-limbed. There are simple meals eaten at an outdoor table, where the conversation wanders in no particular direction.
Evenings seem to slow time even further. We pause for the sunsets – because here, you can’t not. The sky moves from gold to rose to indigo, and the water keeps each colour a little longer than the land. Later, we curl up for movies or board games, the sound of the lake through the open windows reminding us where we are.
It isn’t the cottage itself that makes this place special. The building could be anywhere. It’s the way it asks so little of us – and, in doing so, gives us so much. It’s proof that joy doesn’t always come from what’s planned, but from what’s allowed to happen.
The kids are getting older now. Their worlds are widening. I know there will be summers when they can’t – or won’t – come. But I hope this island will always hold their memories the way it holds mine: gently, patiently, without needing to change them.
Because the beauty of tradition isn’t in its grandeur. It’s in the repetition of the small and the ordinary. The way the same simple moments – quiet mornings, tangled lake hair, sunsets – can become the threads that hold a family’s story together.
One day, I know I’ll come back and see those moments everywhere, even if the people in them have changed. And I’ll think: we built this, without ever meaning to.
