It’s not really winter anymore. The snow is mostly gone. Both the tall piles of pushed white snow and the great glistening fields have been melted away, leaving country fields of mud and corn stubble, and city piles of various debris; rotting animals and so much trash. The season is ugly now. It’s spring, but not really. The ice isn’t good anymore. You could walk on it if you wished to tempt fate, but when you die we’d all read your obituary with little sympathy. He had it coming, people would say. What did he expect, others would rhetorically ask. The clean winter scene is gone, the spring scene is coming, but for now, it’s just brown and gray, dirty and raw. Welcome to the spell of no seasonal conviction.
Though we are in the ‘tween, this weekend there were great bursts of activity. Cars in driveways, cars on roads. Walkers pushing strollers, carrying shopping bags, tugging back at the dog leashes. There were people out, people up, and there was life. There is always life here, at this great lake, so that’s not entirely unexpected. Indeed, winter at the lake is full of activity and fun, which is one of the myriad things that sets Geneva apart from the rest of the Midwest. But this weekend now past, there was more of it all. There were people, cars, and many lake house doors being unlocked for the first time in a long time. There was anticipation.
Most newer Lake Geneva owners recognize the value of a Lake Geneva winter. Most visit their homes, often. Why sit in the suburbs or the city on a winter weekend when you could make a short drive and be active lakeside? This is how the newer buyers think, but older owners are set in their ways, and they’re comfortable in their sometimes non-commitment to the winter scene. Those owners were up this weekend, pushing aside the leaves that gathered near their front door, the leaves that were covered in thick snow and plenty of ice up until the sun and the warmth did away with that shroud. Houses were checked, front lawns were walked. Sticks were picked up.
Piers were looked at, not in the way we’d like to look at them, when they’re long and straight and installed, but in their stacks on the lawns. Even when a pier stacked it’s worth looking at. If you disagree, you must not own one. So the leaves are kicked aside, the sticks are picked up, the pier stack is looked at. The ice is there, so much ice, extending over the whole lake, but at the near shore there are glimpses of open water- not much- but enough. It won’t be long now, these owners think. It won’t be long now, not long at all.
But it will be long, and it will take too long. It will go on and on, and once spring in its full pastel glory does show up, it will go on and on some more. The ice will be gone in two weeks, the piers will be in within four more, and the boats will be in shortly after. There are many things to do before then. The carpets should be cleaned. That old television should be replaced. The refrigerator didn’t work as well as it should have last summer, so it must go, too. These will be done in May, early May, mid May, late May. May. They must be done so things will be ready for when it all matters. Memorial Day. Without one eye on the task at hand and another on the goal that comes a mere 10 weeks from now, these things will not be done in time. The old owners know this. The new owners know this. The should-be and soon-to-be owners will learn it.