The last day of middle school. 1984. It was a gorgeous June day and I celebrated by pulling out a lawn chair and laying in the sun. I had just finished three miserable years of middle school during which my awkwardness and introversion met headfirst with bullying and peer pressures. I was very thankful that that phase of my life was over. My reward, I told myself, was doing absolutely nothing. The minute I got home, I dumped my backpack and did some minor archeology in the garage, eventually excavating a boombox radio/cassette player. I found the pop station (in this backwater town, there was really only one) and, ceremoniously, took in a deep breath. I let the sun wash over me and took a seat. As I grew drowsy from the heat, the commercials on the radio ended. What happened next was utterly transformative.

The music started. A saxophone. Silky and soulful. It washed over me too but this time the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. This song hit me hard and seemingly altered my DNA.

I forgot where I was instantly. I was now flying first class to some exotic place. I was floating 35,000 feet in the air. I was going places and experiencing something new. I was grown up. I was instantly something that I had never been. I was...sophisticated.

And then the song ended. I turned up the radio hoping to hear the song title and artist. After an agonizing wait…he said it: Sade pronounced Shar-day. The song was Your Love is King. 

I am pretty sure Diamond Life was the first cassette that I bought for myself. It was instantly my music. It wasn’t the heavy metal albums I tried to consume to fit in. It wasn’t the hand-me down Madonna 45s my sister left when she moved out of town. It wasn’t my parents’ Ahmad Jamal jazz piano LPs that had graced the eclectic collection in the cabinet under the record player. This was my music. From this moment forward, I knew I had to live up to it.

Sade’s music is unique and I am not sure why I connected with it. It described pretty much everything that my life was not. But yet there is something in each song that consistently drew me back, that brought me home. I can’t describe what genre or style it is. When I was in high school, I used to get angry when others claimed it was smooth jazz. No, I had been subjected to hours of smooth jazz when I had to get my braces tightened. It wasn’t jazz jazz either. Or, at least, it was not the Bebop or big band jazz I knew. 

I remember once looking for Sade’s albums at a record store and finding them in the R&B section. I wondered why they were misplaced although I quickly came around to the logic of that placement. But the weird thing is, the music transcends that classification. Yet, the albums were rarely in the pop section although the crossover has been consistent. The music is different and it is hard to classify at times. That’s what makes it interesting. It is something in and of itself. 

Helen Folasade Adu is the lead singer and songwriter of the group that bears her stage name, Sade. She is a British artist born to an English mother and a Nigerian father. She rose to prominence in the mid-1980s in that same moment that brought other British New Wave groups. Like Duran Duran, Sade’s glamour made her an excellent visual representation of that first generation of music video performers. Her iconic style—hoop earrings and long black hair pulled back tight—seemed, to my 14 year old mind, the epitome of effortless elegance. We knew when she was singing that she, in fact, was the smooth operator. 

Sade’s songs cover a range of hard-hitting topics punctuated by themes of love, heartache, and occasionally social justice. The music, slower than traditional pop, exudes mid-century jazz and northern soul traces more than most Rhythm and Blues, I would argue. The group infuses pop beats with soulful susurrations of the saxophone and keyboard. The combination of everything creates an eclectic soundtrack to storytelling about the trials of finding and maintaining love. A New Yorker article describes the music and Sade’s rich voice as highlighting an “imperfect dignity over a show of pain” and if one begins to dissect the lyrics they can see allusions to the sharpness or threatening nature of love. In more than one song, there is a statement about how love is a gun and battles over the heart take their toll. The mix of love and war metaphors is at the forefront in the 2010 album Soldier of Love.

For most of her career, Sade has produced her music on her schedule. Long periods of hiatus punctuated, more recently, by spasmodic offerings of single songs. Her social media spits out announcements so infrequently that they—much like the star herself—leave her fans longing for more. Sade’s control of her time and image is antithetic to most figures of her stature and works to only create more mystery. We really only have the stage image and a few rare interviews. But that is all fine. It is what makes her remarkable. In an era when no one can seem to shut up about themselves, Sade gives us an alternative vision of stardom.

Make no mistake, as one, if not the most profitable female musician in Great Britain, she is a superstar with a career that has been more influential than anyone else in that wave of British Blitz kids that took the 80s by storm. You’ll occasionally hear hip hop and rap artists proclaim their love for Sade. And that is what this love letter is about. For me—a scrawny dork from eastern Washington state—to have Sade as the soundtrack to my life, speaks to the complexity and richness of her music. 

It’s a mistake to fixate on Sade as a style icon or sex symbol. She is both undoubtedly and, in her 60s, doesn’t appear to have aged at all. Her image is in no way mothering but, instead, like that really cool auntie. She has a casualness that is comforting and not at all threatening. This is the vulnerable character at the center of the stories in her songs who shares her wisdom with you. There are facets to the flawlessness that come from the trials that must have been in addition to the charmed life we assume she’s had. But, again, we don’t know much about her. 

So, we have to construct meaning from her discography. I am sure, like the diversity of her themes and the music itself, that we—her fans—have to derive our own meaning from her words and performances. And our memory of our own youth. It is not profound until you stop to think about how she has grown appeal over time and across a wide audience. As I sit writing this in the summer of 2020 and the Black Lives Matter protests across the globe, I can’t help but think about the legacy of Sade’s work and how, even in the 1980s, she and the group had subtly carried on the traditions of 1960s Motown and jazz. I am suggesting that, while pop music had to give way to hip hop, Sade is and was something more exalted: a bridge, an inexorable connection between the mid-20th century and this very moment. Simply, she deserves wider praise. The group itself is a mirror of multicultural cohesion that must also be celebrated. One appeal, to me, is their willingness to put Sade and the music forward. And to operate as something bigger than any one personality. The words, then, about love and pain are sung to us by someone who now bears the responsibility for taking the ideals of the past and delivering them across class and culture. 

Sade will, no doubt, continue to create on her own terms and the resulting music will elevate our worn and frazzled lives. In the sounds, we will be enriched and, of course, sophisticated again.

An illustration I did this time last year as part of a comic. I modified it to include what we know now. You can see the rest of the comic here: Goodbye 2019 comic

2020

For most of my adult life, I have had the habit of naming the years as they finish. I’ve lived through the Magical Year (when my first daughter was born), the Shift Year (the year my second daughter was born and I left my job to teach at the University), the Cozy Year (when everything seemed comfortably status quo) and the Humbling Year (when I could do nothing right). I think there may have been several Humbling Years, to be honest. 

I haven’t decided what to call 2020. I was thinking the Plague Year. But the Breaking Year might be more appropriate. It feels like we all took on a weight and, yes, survived but it took a toll. There is a lot to unpack in that statement. But it is best to be felt. It is affect not intellect at play. So, to lay it out—to splay the year—I am creating a list of things to remember and share:

Driving. The highlight of the entire year was the evenings in the summer when I took my daughters driving. The older kid was getting ready to take her driver’s test, the younger one her permit exam. But this was so much more than driving instruction. This was connection. We spent about an hour in the car each day. We were out of the house and we could talk. They are both very good drivers, so I enjoyed just being a passenger. Both girls would tell me about their lives, we would reminisce, and we’d talk about the future. In the car, everything was normal and we broke out of our daily routines somewhat. We explored new roads and routes. We saw areas near town we’d never seen, marveling at the beauty of the countryside mere miles from our house. We would stop occasionally to watch a sunset or a full moon rising. I often would stop and remind myself to cherish the time together and that they will soon be out of the house starting their own lives. I felt blessed for the candid discussion and, simply, the time together. They eventually both passed their tests. Bittersweet but a perfect way to end a suffocating lockdown summer: government ordained freedom and a transportation pass to the future.

Writing. In the spring, my colleague Dave and I received a research award and, subsequently, decided our thinking wasn’t completely off-kilter. We submitted an abstract for a conference presentation expanding on the ideas in the article that won the award. The abstract was accepted but the conference did not happen. One night in early summer, we decided to take the presentation and convert it to a journal article. We seemed to do the bulk of the work in one long night over Zoom. But, as all good collaborations go, we often veered off topic and it was really funny. I remember finishing up the writing and feeling chuffed with what we wrote but suffering a stitch in my side because I had been laughing hard. The article was accepted and the reviewers’ notes were remarkably positive. Never has writing been this easy or fun. The article should be published this month.

Worrying. I saw it coming. In January, I remember thinking that Covid-19 might be something we’d have to contend with. I wrote down in my journal: Sars-nCoV-2—pay attention. In February, I told the faculty to prepare to teach online and they seemed skeptical but compliant. When March came and the university went online, I felt vindicated but surprisingly uneasy. I worried about my family, the faculty, the students, and the university. The whole lot added to the weight of national politics and it was all-consuming. Throughout the year, I suffered from a series of nightmares which I diligently recorded before going back to bed. Prior to the start of the fall semester (while still in the summer) I started to lose sleep over the logistics of going back into the classroom fall semester (my university was one of the few that held in-person classes). Sometimes I would just open the blinds and watch the outside world until I fell back asleep. I’d often awaken groggy with a sense of dread that I discounted as lack of sleep. I was sure someone I knew would pass away. I still have those nightmares now and then. Some of the more memorable dreams/nightmares:

March 11: Nightmare. Outside of the house we can see people dying in the street. No one we recognize, so it is almost comical—some bodies literally fall from the sky. We laugh as the bodies pile up. Not until the corpses are stacked 5 feet high, do we begin to worry.

March 15: Nightmare: We moved to the mountains to be away from the virus. Our cabin has two floors. My bedroom is on the ground floor and I am sleeping alone. During our first night, I fall violently ill with a high temperature and a cough. I panic because I want to say goodbye to my family but am too sick to move. I can’t breathe and wake up in the nightmare. It is morning and I feel fine. Ella or Safaa call me to the front of the cabin. There is a set of odd footprints in the snow outside my window. We conclude that this was death watching me.

March 22: Dreamt we were running out of food and could not go out. I tell everyone to think of this as Ramadan and that we’ll eat once a day to survive. The kids look worried. To calm them, we go to the garage where there is a water slide — it is identical to the rides at the Atlantis in Dubai. We do the ride and end up in the basement but can’t figure how out to get out. The door has disappeared. 

April 10: Nightmare: I am forced to watch a new streaming service that shows only people dying from the virus. I am horrified but a stern-looking person tells me to continue and that “it gets better the more you watch.” I sit for what feels like hours and, soon, at the end of each story, the dead person floats out of their body and is interviewed. Each person talks about how they fell in love with another ghost. After waking up, the whole thing reminds me of When Harry Met Sally in the afterlife.

May 10: Dreamt that I was at a conference being held in a large, tall, modern hall with my daughter Safaa. She decides against my protestations to climb a half wall. She eventually loses her footing because she is shuffling her feet. I can’t reach her in time to grab her as she falls. She hits the ground 30 feet below making a sickening slapping sound as she makes contact. I am panicked but eventually she gets up and comes to chastise me for not saving her. She seems fine. 

August 8: Nightmare: The power goes out. I hear the door downstairs open. There are footsteps. I know there is more than one person in the house but I see no one. It is pitch black. I go downstairs and look. No one. I go into the TV room (which is strangely located where the garage is now) and open a closet to find a woman ravaged by disease. Scared to death, I woke up. In thinking about the nightmare, my horror was not that she was frightening (she was) but that she had given me her disease. 

Distracting. Reading and watching streaming services has been more important than ever. But I also found it more...difficult? I literally have stacks of books in the office but have yet to read one cover to cover. I preferred to watch streaming services. I watched copious amounts of HGTV and Food Network shows. My goto shows were Home Town, Fixer Upper, Chopped, and, of course, the Great British Baking Show (if you are married to a British person, it is required viewing). The Queen’s Gambit was my favorite movie (series) and The Mandalorian my favorite show. Parasite. The Crown. I watched Knives Out again and, in the context of the BLM, it read as a powerful statement about race, white entitlement, and the future of the country. The girls and I watched the Tiger King, Unsolved Mysteries, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This Christmas, I revisited old favorites A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, three versions of A Christmas Carol (four if you include A Muppet Christmas Carol). There was something about the comfort of Christmas nostalgia for a different era or of my own past. I found some great new holiday films such as The Happiest Season (watch it for Dan Levy alone), Let it Snow and Dash and Lily. The last two I dreaded watching and ended up actually enjoying them. They are guilty pleasures for the teenager buried deep inside me.

Walking. Lipi and I walked a lot. She walked everyday. On rainy days, she’d walk around and around the kitchen and living room like a caged animal. When she’d venture outside, I would sometimes tag along. We walked all over our neighborhood, weaving back and forth through various streets to make the walk longer. We would often talk about work but then she’d say something like: “I love what they did to this house…” and we go see it. We became active neighbors often visiting the communal garden in the field behind our house. As we’d pass on our walk, at a distance we would catch up with everyone. Sometimes we go walking after dark to avoid the heat of summer. Even going to get the mail at midnight felt perfectly normal and needed. These walks were something we did before the pandemic and will do afterward. But they feel different, more meaningful now.

Worrying Part 2. The world seemed to be falling apart before the virus. It hasn’t gotten better. I will reject change for stupidity’s sake but will, if forced, buckle down and, quickly, learn to see the opportunity. But it seems that the virus laid bare how badly everything is managed and how many in charge are not immune from bad decision-making. I won’t dwell on it but the consequences now seem so dire and we utterly failed on multiple fronts. To complicate matters, 40% or more of us showed themselves to be cold, selfish, quasi-sociopathic. While I still refuse to let go of my belief in the good of people, I realize now that a lot of us are just painfully ignorant and do not care. That is a monumental realization. If we want change we have to do it ourselves and that others, who cannot see past the short-term self-interest, will actively be moving in the opposite direction. As we go back into the classroom with new variants of the virus and budget woes, I again worry for students, faculty colleagues, family, and friends. It is a different scale problem but one just as dire. In every aspect of our lives, there isn’t one problem but layer upon layer of them. Good luck. Just because we traded a 1 for a 0 doesn’t mean we fixed anything.

Losing. We did lose people we knew. I am sure we all know somebody that has died. In fact, 1 out of every 1000 Americans lost their life. When you know someone it is different. Any death is hard normally. But this year stung a little more because it all seemed somewhat preventable. The people I knew that passed away this year were quiet, helpful, and kind. The type of people you hope and assume will be around forever.

Learning. Life moves on and I found ways to keep myself pleasantly distracted. There are so many conferences that I’ve always wanted to attend but could never afford. This year they were low cost and online. I attended so many remarkable presentations and learned a lot. I was, beyond a doubt, inspired. I attended Playgrounds (design and entertainment), Siggraph (new technologies), Lightbox Expo (concept and character design), UCDA (design and higher education), and Adobe MAX (Adobe products showcase and creative disciplines). I feel quite fortunate. This was distraction with a purpose.

Admiring. For every selfish, incompetent person exposed, there was another that revealed cool-headed careful planning and selfless concern. I felt incredibly fortunate to be working with my colleagues in my program who rose to each and every challenge. They planned, prepared, taught, struggled, challenged, advised, listened, and cared. Whenever I felt unsure or concerned, every single one of them came to the rescue and offered help. I hope to be as helpful. 

 Agitating. Things need to change. Systems and structures aren’t working for a lot of us and we need new ideas and measured but daring thinking. We sat at home and watched with bated breath, fearing the worst and hoping for change. We voted, we did our professional duty, we wrote letters, we screamed, we called, and some of us marched. We went above and beyond to keep those in our charge ALIVE, enlightened, and entertained. And what did we get for it? Nothing really. That builds resentment. As the New Year unfolds there unfortunately isn’t a new story. There isn’t understanding or real appreciation. So, we will make that change and we will be less than complicit or malleable. And when it is safe we will demand something real and different or we will move on.  

A hum
A drumbeat
A bang
A whisper
A long, loud Siren
A silence

Nothing

A smile hidden
A cup of coffee
A walk
A sunrise
A sunset
A dark night

Nothing

Dark horizons
A cough
A bead of sweat
An endless night
A grip
A stranglehold
A sting
A swab
A jab

A long pause

A fear
An obit
An empty promise
A long, sharp pain
A lifetime

In Bangladesh, the 21st of February is the anniversary of the day when Bengalis fought for recognition for the Bangla language (in then East Pakistan) which was tied to Bangladesh’s struggle for independence in 1971. Every year the Association for Bangladeshi Students and Scholars hosts a celebration at Washington State University and asked me to provide a keynote for the 2019 event.

For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Gregory Turner-Rahman and I am the head of the Art + Design program at the University of Idaho. I am also a writer/illustrator. My stock in trade is visual storytelling. 

So, I feel a little awkward being up here in front of you, talking with you. I’ve come to this event a number of times and really enjoyed it. I especially remember discussions of preservation of indigenous languages. That, to me, gets to the heart of the issue. It makes apparent the value and importance of this and other cultural events. How then is someone who deals with imagery going to add to the discussion? This is an evening to celebrate language and culture. You are probably wondering what I could possibly offer. 

It’s usually at this point in a presentation that I like to tell a joke. Jokes are often the quickest way to connect an audience to a speaker. To put an audience at ease. So, as I was preparing my remarks, I searched for a joke to tell you that was related to language. That didn’t turn out well. Most of the jokes, through a 2019 filter, seemed silly if not downright offensive. I never found a decent joke. But what I found was far more important.

What I found was that humor through technology now happens in a plethora of ways. But we’ll come back to that in a minute.

I spend a lot of my day working with and thinking in images. 

Actually, we all do. In 1996, Harvard psychologist Stephen Kossyln wrote a definitive description of the nature of the internal representation of visual mental imagery. Kosslyn used breakthroughs in medical imaging to show that perception and representation are inextricably linked, and to show how "quasi-pictorial" events in the brain are generated, interpreted, and used in cognition.

So, what does that mean exactly? It means, simply, we use images to think. This is really important because there is a common misconception that our thoughts are only in spoken and written language. 

Let’s take that thinking a step further. I am here to tell you that art and popular culture—film, in particular—are like a language and vehicles for cultural transmission. They are intimately tied to language. But they are a prosthetic language too.

Art—with a capital A— is often something that many people don’t like or don’t understand. Art—with a little a—we engage with all the time. Everything, now, is designed and you are constantly, whether you are aware of it or not, engaged in interactions through and with designed artifacts. This is art. We wear clothes. We go to the movies. We read stuff on webpages on our phones. Everything we are looking at can be considered artistic or cultural production. 

I like the example of film. 

Film allows for rich transmission of cultural ideas. The use of music, spoken language, pacing, the variety of distances to the camera to tell stories with great effect. This sometimes is called Affect. In the late 90s media researcher Annie Lang, from the Indiana University, described how the editing of image sequences in films could increase the heart-rate of the viewer or how larger images that allowed for an extreme close-up make us more aroused. That makes sense if you think about it. The only time we really see someone up close is when we are extremely comfortable with them. Annie Lang’s work seems almost mundane but if you really peel back the layers you get to the idea that we constantly see images and, although we know they are artificial and we intellectualize their artificiality, our bodies may be reacting different. They might explain why we feel energized or exhausted watching action sequence but I am getting off topic. Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran tells us our mirror neurons allow us to observe and learn. This is really important. It means that we can learn motor skills from observation. It also means that we can form empathetic relationships with those we observe. This is why film may have such impact. If we use images to form quasi-pictorial events in our minds, then we use images to think, to communicate, and even to connect. 

I didn’t find humor in a lot of the written jokes I found online as I mentioned before. They seemed old and tired and mired in boring, often repeated themes. But I did find something really interesting. I found shared YouTube videos, vines, tik toks, instagram images, you name it. Our daily lives are now awash in images and short movies. The wonderful thing about this new media landscape is that it allows us to share across cultures and we use these tools primarily through our phones to celebrate, inspect, challenge, transmit, enhance our culture, our language. As we share images we potentially give them to a global audience. Embedded in those are our language and clues to our culture. 

Problems with new media are not, as you might believe, that we are developing a global monoculture. Exclusivity or a questioning of the value of discourse. One problem that has arisen is the manipulation of social media platforms through paid armies of trolls (or people to try to disrupt and sway the discussion). These armies of influencers might now be artificially intelligent but that is a whole other conversation. My point here is that the battle for representation—the very heart of the discussion about language and culture is happening on multiple fronts. 

I am going to shift gears here. I want to talk a little about representation and language. 

Between Washington State University and the University of Idaho there are over 650 study abroad opportunities in 50 or more countries. But you don’t have travel to experience different cultures. Between the two universities there are over 3000 students from over 100 countries.

Events like this one and the various events that celebrate various cultures through entertainment and food are extremely important. They make culture and, by default, language, a multi-sensory experience. The richness of each culture can be felt, experienced. Even tasted!

How, then, can a mediated experience to compete? How can an instagram image or YouTube video even compare?

For the answer, let’s go back in time to 1927.

The famous Bengali film director Satyajit Ray is 6 years old and studying at a school founded by Rabindranath Tagore. For those of you who don’t know who Tagore was, he is an unparalleled Bengali poet who, in 1913, became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore’s prominence is such that he composed both the Indian and Bangladeshi national anthems.

You can imagine how larger-than-life he would appear to a 6 year old boy.

Ray gives his notebook to Tagore to sign an autograph. Tagore does so but also writes a poem:

বহু দিন ধোরে, বহু ক্রোশ দুরে
বহু ব্য্য় কোরি, বহু দেশ ঘুরে
দেখিতে গিযাছি পর্বত্ মালা,
দেখিতে গিযাছি সিন্ধু দেখা হয় নাই দু চোখ মেলিযা ঘর হোতে শুধু দুই পা ফেলিযা এক্তি ধানের শিশের উপর এক্তি শিশির বিন্দু

For many years, I have travelled to many lands far away.
I've gone to see the mountains. I’ve been to view the oceans.
But I failed to see what lay not two steps from my home.
On a sheaf of paddy grain – a glistening drop of dew.

 The  power of that little poem is the world it creates. You can imagine Satyajit Ray reading that everyday and how the imagery produced in his mind’s eye focus from the wide world to one tiny aspect of Ray’s everyday life. The poem, to me, told Ray to cherish what he had and to look closely to appreciate it.

In 1961 Satyajit Ray directed a film that was a biography of Tagore. The connective tissue further binds the lives of these two men is language they share but also an ability to share the complexities of culture through their various media. Satyajit Ray continues Tagore’s legacy but in a multi-modal fashion with words and images.

Film is visual storytelling and images can be poetry.  

Just as poetry is imagery. 

Tagore and Ray were masters at mining the quasi-pictorial for choice words or images intended for maximum impact.

We all don’t have the training, talent, or, frankly, the patience to be a writer or filmmaker of Tagore or Ray’s stature. But we have at our disposal the tools to create relevant experiences. Whether they are funny or heartwarming. Frightening even. Mundane. Whatever.

The technology now provides a device to record and network to share. And that’s what I encourage you all to do. 

Share your culture. Share your ideas. Get them out there in the world. Celebrate and communicate. 

Share your humor. Your traditional songs. Your craft. Your music. Share how to make your food.

Tell your stories.

But, perhaps, what is more important is to explore outside your own culture. Take the time to listen, watch, experience other people’s efforts. 

To help you out I may some recommendations. Explore:

• Native American Rap—in particular Supaman, Frank Waln, and Drezus

• International gaming communities and their traditions

• K-pop fan cultures

• Japanese street fashion

• Ghanian Cuisine

• Vietnamese Street food

• The Virtual reality storytelling of Nyla Innuksuk, an Inuit filmmaker 

There is so much more to experience if we venture outside of our proverbial comfort zone. Use the device to not only produce a representation of your world but to find and connect to someone else’s culture.

It is easy and enjoyable. The best way to preserve a culture and language is not only to disseminate it but be an audience for another and to make connections.  

Thank you for sharing your time with me. Enjoy your evening. 

Yesterday, like many other Americans, we loaded up the car and drove to a cabin on a nearby lake for a short vacation. We took so much crap with us from home that, when we return, I will have to remind myself we were not, in fact, robbed. The drive was uneventful until we got within a few miles of the lake when I remembered that I had set a hat on the side and, most likely, forgotten it. I asked my oldest kid if she had seen my hat. “I’ve got it in my bag,” she said in that way only teenagers can - with a mix of both nonchalance and utter exasperation.

“Which one?” I asked.

“The one that makes you look like you just colonized a nation.”

Remarkable. The kid once that placed her $700 cell phone on the ground to tie her shoes and then proceeded to walk away when she finished had managed to be in the moment enough (not to mention thinking selflessly) to bring my hat. I patted myself on the back, chuffed, thinking about my fantastic parenting until my wife—reading the look of my face—told me that she had asked the kid to take the hat. This one event seems to be an apt micro-encapsulation of our lives.

We arrived in the evening to find the cabin perched high on a hill and what seemed liked about 200 steps up to the front door. We carefully dismantled the Tetris block collection of food bags, bottled water and four suitcases (which contained every possible outfit change for summer events and weather). I’ll have you know that the actual portion allotted to me was roughly the size of a postcard in all dimensions—such is my lot as the only male in the family). At some point up the first flight or two of rickety wooden steps, we realized that maybe bringing all this stuff was not a good idea. We persevered and managed to get everything up into the cabin after a two dozen trips up and down the stairs.

At one point, my youngest daughter stopped to tell me that there were not 200 steps but only 50. Then she said, “Like one for each state…”

“Watch out,” I told her and her sister, “Michigan is a little loose.”

So, here we are. We did the prerequisite standing on the deck looking over the lake. We’ve eaten hot dogs and paddled about in kayaks. We caught fish and got sunburned. All that and we haven’t been here for 24 hours yet.

We will probably discover things to do inside when it gets hot tomorrow. The cabin is comfortable and decorated in what I call a mix of “Psychopath Chic” and “Seafroth Vomit”. There are swans and sailboats and all sorts of knick-knacks covering every surface. Actually there are layers upon layers of decorations: an amateur painting of what seems to be a post-apocalyptic plein air scene, life preservers and seaship steering wheels (although these are so small they are apparently taken from squirrel sea vessels), and a collection of Parisian street scenes, wildlife and waterfowl paintings, and one strangely appropriate picture of the Irish Potato Famine. I kid you not.

The odd decor continues in the bathroom where, between the shower and the sink, is a miniature watercooler just in case you get parched crossing the room or you feel the need to gossip with yourself as you dry off or brush your teeth. The shower has a frilly valence that, with the lights out, makes it look like a corpulent 19th century Czech woman.

It’s all too much. But it is an indication of someone’s life, most likely a generation or two of previous owners. It is fascinating looking at other people’s stuff in this instance. I try to make some meaning of it all but it is layered in time. Soon, I get distracted.

My parents are here. The next morning I hear them up early and groggily met up with them on the deck with a shockingly large mug of coffee. They seem genuinely excited to hear my nonsensical stories about work and the kids. We watch osprey, swallows, and even a bald eagle gracefully fill the perfect cloudless summer sky.

We revel in the quiet and listen to the lapping lake water before launching into another story and laughing.

In the evening, we hobble down the steps to clean up life jackets and rafts. There is more stuff to consider before we can eat our dinner when the quiet is broken by the ring of a shotgun. We rush across the street to see a nearby neighbor’s dog entangled in a vicious fight with a very substantial raccoon. The neighbor’s kids are screaming and wailing. The shotgun goes off again and the raccoon is motionless. We don’t wait and watch, instead we rush to the safety of our tacky cabin on the hill. The commotion dies down about the time we reach Utah or New Mexico.

At dinner, I feel bad for the raccoon. And the dog. And the neighbor’s children.

But I also feel safe in our knick-knack palace. Surrounded by the people I love, the conversation reminds me that it isn’t really about the things in our lives or even the places, but instead it is the people.