p-k days

It's July and it's hot, and I'm in downtown Toronto. Yesterday I began thinking of Patterson-Kaye Lodge. Such a beautiful place and such wonderful memories.

Everyone should have a summer tradition. Whether it's a cottage, or a resort, or the nearest beach -- it becomes weightier and mightier and richer when it becomes ritualized. My mom and I made our own summer ritual with P-K, a resort in Bracebridge, in the Muskokas, run by the Miller family.

One week every summer, for six years, until I returned to school, and she died from cancer. I haven't been there in three years now. Yesterday I was missing it -- and her -- badly.

Every year the weeks were the same, from Sunday to Sunday. Shuffleboard on Monday, baseball on Tuesday, talent night in the Lodge Tuesday night (with the most hilarious homegrown skits put on by the Miller kids and staff -- and any guests brave enough), euchre night, bocce ball, tennis, Santa's Village for the young ones, the Saturday night corn roast. It never rained on Saturday night and the stars, which one never sees in the city, multiplied upon themselves in the black sky.

Water sports and fine, fine meals were included. I kayaked and tried to learn to sail, and swam, yet still seemed to put on five pounds every year. My mom had limited mobility as the result of a stroke in her late 40's, but she was able to paddleboat. Every day we went out in one of the three paddle boats and we would be gone for at least an hour. The P-K paddle boats were surprisingly sea(or lake)worthy and we were able to travel good distances in them. We went around the large island in front of the resort, or we'd head into the Muskoka River and look at the cottages.

I was thinking of P-K meals in the diningroom sunroom, looking out at the lake, still and misty in the morning. So, today I decided to enjoy the summer a little more and went down to the Sunnyside Cafe on the lakefront, and ate alfresco by Lake Ontario. I may make this my summer city ritual.

When I came home, I thought of contacting the Millers via e-mail to have them put me back on their mailing list. It was a shock to see the resort has been sold and is under new management. It had always been expected that it would be passed on to the four Miller children, now in high school and university. I tried unsuccessfully online to find out what had happened. You want the story to have a happy ending.

At least it looks like a private sale (recent), rather than to a giant foreign hotel chain.

Hopefully, things stay as they always have been. I want to go back, and I want it to be the same. Or as close to the same as possible. Rituals and traditions can stabilize us in an unstable world.