The lady with the purple hat

She usually sits in our heavily windowed "sunroom," staring out at the neighbors.

She's somewhat attractive, really, with a big purple hat and interesting eyes. Her nose is a bit large, but you tend not to notice ... at least at first.

That's because there are other distractions.

She's naked.

At least from the waist up. You can't tell below that.

Okay, she's not real. But she has upset our Midwestern sensibilities nonetheless. After all, what do you do with a painting of a naked lady? And a robust painting to boot, since it measures 36 x 48 inches? In a smallish room, that's like a drive-in movie screen turned on its end.

It's not easily discarded. Meghan, who painted it in art class, brought it home last year when she emptied her college apartment. It had been sitting back in the sunroom since.

But Meghan recently was home, which is why it became a fresh issue. (She was here for a friend's bachelorette party.) She grabbed it out of the sunroom and brought it to the front of the house, to the wall of the main hallway by the front door, suggesting that's where it belonged. And if not there, then at least over the couch in the living room.

It's nicely done. Meghan is a good artist. And it's not like you don't see these kinds of paintings out and about -- in, say, museums.

But context is everything. It's one thing to see naked women in gold-leaf frames, painted by the Masters, especially if you're armed with a fat museum catalog that explains the significance and symbolism of the work.

It's another to keep your eyes averted while trying to read your book in the rocking chair by the fireplace.

You know, if the nose just wasn't so darn big ...

The cottage - redux

You come prepared for these moments.  The Weaver clan, does, anyway.

If there are tears to be shed, it's done before.  At home, among your immediate family.  To exhaust the emotions.

Because when it's time to gather, to make hard and necessary decisions, it becomes business. Your mind needs to be clear; the course you chart needs to be reasoned and rationale. 

I remember when Dad and Mom finally decided, after some persuasion from us kids, that they should let us help oversee their finances.

It was tough, especially for Dad.  

Dad always was that way.  The responsible one.  My sister recounted a moment when he, very late in years, was being whisked away by an ambulance crew, unsure whether this was the "big" moment at which his time would run out.

He made it clear as he went out the door that he wasn't ready for the big leap ... but also, just in case, he wanted us to know that all of his and Mom's tax files for the current year were in a nearby room, ready to turn in to H&R Block. 

Here was Dad, raised a Baptist, facing the prospect of the ethereal, and yet he seemed to worry most not about his place in Heaven but whether Uncle Sam got his due. 

The reason, of course, was that Dad was a practical man.  He knew that taxes must be paid, and if he didn't pay them, his progeny could be affected.  On the other hand, I suspect he didn't know for sure -- for sure -- that Heaven existed.

It was an understandable choice. 

So we come to the cottage discussion.  There's not much to say, really.  We decided, on Saturday morning, and in a very business-like way, to sell the cottage but with an understanding that we would like to lease it back for at least one year.

We all realized it was a compromise.  We could sell it outright, right away, assuming the buyer could get its finances in order.  But we wanted not just this summer, but next summer too.  To say our goodbyes. 

And that was alright with all of us.  We'd all accepted that Mom and Dad's "Windsong" was a very long, wonderful moment in time, a wonderful gift, but not permanent.  Most of us had moved on, to other vacation rituals and destinations.  We had memories, sure.  But memories shouldn't be an anchor that prevents us from searching for new. 

We later that day had a great time in Nashville. 

After all, we're Weavers.  We're practical folk.  It's business.  Dad, I think, would have been proud.   Or at least understanding.  

He'd been there.  Done that. 

The cottage

We head to Nashville again on Friday, though not to explore what might be new for Zach as he weighs his schooling.

This trip will be to weigh the old -- the comfortable Michigan cottage on Glen Lake that was purchased by Dad and Mom more than 34 years ago and has been the vacation hub for us five siblings since.

The cottage is a small, well-constructed place. There's a larger room at front with fireplace and kitchen at opposite ends, then two small bedrooms and a bunk room at back. It's always been painted red with white trim, so it's easily spotted from across the mile-wide lake. I took my Above Water photo, top, from the cottage's dock.

You can't imagine how perfect it is. 

Why are we meeting in Nashville? It's near two of the siblings. Plus the city will be fun.

Fun will be welcome. Because before the fun, on Saturday morning, we will be meeting over coffee to discuss the cottage's fate.

It will be a difficult meeting. All of us -- my three sisters and brother -- have countless memories there: of our respective children playing in the sun and water, of the winds that blow continuously off of nearby Lake Michigan, of our parents' and our own love for the place.

I estimate that I, myself, have spent more than a year of my life up there. We've shared the cottage with various close friends. Our dogs through the years have found it a happy place -- noses always twitching as new, marvelous scents arrive by the minute. The ashes of two of our past dogs were scattered among the lake's waves.

Dad used to say it was the one place in the world where he could discard his blood pressure medication and not fear the worst. Mom dubbed the place "WindSong," preferring it over "A Second Wind," which she always felt put too much focus on her and Dad's stage in life.

Though "Second Wind" was always the more clever of the two -- and the name I favored -- she was wise to insist on "WindSong," I think. It speaks so much more to the place of it.

The question before us is simple: When shall we sell the place? The reasons why we must sell are more complex ... having to do with phases in life, the inability of any one of us to buy out the other, the need to press on with our own lives.

And it's not an unusual situation. Sons and daughters since almost the beginning of time have had to shed family assets as the needs of family change.

Certainly we've been here before, having sold the family home in St. Louis after Mom moved to a Kansas City care facility.

But this is different, and for me harder. Maybe because when we're up there, we can all be at our best ... we spend more time with our children, we read the books that we should read, we view the North's dazzling display of stars and consider our place in Creation. As I've mentioned, the water itself seems sacred -- so clear that you can see the bottom at depths of 6 feet and more.

But also -- and perhaps this is more important -- it is the last physical, tangible place that we own where Dad and Mom once wandered. On the cottage refrigerator are some photos we keep of them sharing breakfast duties late in their lives ... Dad, with weak legs, sitting on a stool with a phone book as a booster so he can more easily reach the stove; Mom grabbing items from the fridge.

To sell the cottage means we must rely only on photos and other artifacts to recall what this place was. Inevitable and necessary, for sure, but hollow compared with being there, smelling the place, seeing the water, feeling the wind and the sun.

Harriet Martineau, the English writer, philosopher and journalist, once wrote: "There have been few things in my life which have had a more genial effect on my mind than the possession of a piece of land."

I'm also reminded of a 1991 biography of the Anheuser Busch family, "Under the Influence." I recall a moment in the book -- and I'm paraphrasing -- when brewery king Gussie Busch, with only days left to live, looks out upon the family estate called Grants Farm and utters in quiet despair, "I so love this place." Perhaps he fears that Heaven won't match his heaven on earth.

I think of these things, and then think of a project we just finished publishing by C.W. Gusewelle, the Kansas City Star columnist. The book, called "The Cabin," is a collection of stories Charlie shared with readers about life in the Ozarks cabin that he and his wife purchased when young -- life's lessons learned there, the exposure of their daughters to nature's wonderment, the fellowship of hunters chasing turkey by day and sharing Wild Turkey at night.

I kick myself now that I didn't have the wits to chronicle our time spent at our "cabin." Though it's never too late to start, I guess.

In short, Charlie's book lovingly details the emotional bind created over time between human soul and physical place.

I know my sisters, brother and I share a similar bind tied to the cottage. 

Whatever we decide, we will decide with love and a deep gratitude for what we've gained from "WindSong" over the years.

We are so very lucky.