And so am I, full with the imprints of time and memory. I am rich in soul, yet I’m hungry for more. It’s not a feast I want: I want what singer Sam Garrett wants, “More life, more blessings; more peace, more unity.” Through the years, I’ve discovered ghosts here in the ashes of people spread on the lake shore. By here, I mean “The Old-Style Place,” a cabin that has been in the family for fifty years. Rustic, well-built, no running water, no bathroom, just an outhouse. 

In the spring, one chore involves cleaning the outhouse; this means removing snake skins, sweeping away mounds of spider webs, and mopping up dust. Many people would not like this place. Tonight, I note the silence and half-full Buck Moon, a cipher in the sky hiding behind branches of the large pines.

Honoring the remnants of life’s past is part of my yearly visit here, just as it was for those who left their relatives on the shore. Imprints remain from those who sat on the dock watching the western sun set over the lake. Many of them have passed on: my parents, a childhood friend, an uncle, a few aunts, grandparents, and the many others.

They’re all here. Tonight.

The evening moves at a slow summer pace, transitioning from dusk to dark when loons begin wailing and yodeling. The loon call has a mystical, otherworldly quality; I hear its echo all around this quiet lake and am convinced there is nothing else like it.

While the outhouse has been swept clean of spiders, the boathouse has not, and so we’re sleeping together tonight, twenty feet from the water, because I want to hear the loons. The Ojibwe of the area call the loon “maang;” it’s known as the most handsome of birds. They’re stubborn, too, having lived since prehistoric times. They’re yodeling now, but they won’t go on like this very long, and when they stop, I will miss their call.

Since the mid 1970s, The Old Style Place has had very few improvements of any note. That’s fifty years now. The ghosts here are like the stubborn cabin owners, like the Buck Moon in faded light—and like the loons, the ghosts refuse to fade away.

Inside, I open the cabin photo album to remember once again who I am. The blue album cover is beat up, and the photos are worn by time, the yearly cycle of heat and cold. I see strange markings in the photos, something that looks like smoke from a cigar outlining heads and shoulders. This imprint is in most of the pictures and is especially pronounced near the people that have passed on.

In one photo from the 70s, I sat near a campfire with a large guitar over my lap. The trail of light (or ghostly imprint from a time past) wound upward from the guitar’s body and over my right shoulder before trailing out at the top of the photo. A similar-looking smoke and ghostly shadow mark the pictures of my mother and father. But, around them, there is more shadow.

I think of a chant from my heritage: Lo there do I see my father /  Lo there do I see my sisters and mothers / Lo there do I see the long line of my people back to the beginning / They bid me come to them to join them in the halls of Valhalla / Where only the brave shall live forever.

It’s July 29, and I am remembering my heritage. I am remembering my father on what would have been his 90th birthday. I miss that sturdy, rooted man, as I missed the loon migration this spring.

Under the hungry Buck Moon, a prehistoric bird works underwater to get unhungry, then suddenly breaks the surface. The sound of something unusual and deep and mystical travels in waves across the water to land in my heart.

Lo, the fathers are here, the mothers are here, the ghosts are here.

Photo by Jennifer Lim-Tamkican on Unsplash