Winter of My Discontent

Delayed gratification

Well, at the end of my August 9 blog post I left you hanging. My husband Jay and I had moved our family to a beach house on the Indiana dunes in Michigan City, Indiana. We intended to spend the summer there while during the renovation of our Chicago Victorian rowhouse. At the end of the summer, however, months of restoration work remained. We extended our beach stay to Christmas.

As you might have guess, December came and our city home continued to be uninhabitable. We would be staying on the beach for the winter.

swimsuits to snowsuits

The eastern shore of Lake Michigan in summer is a sunny paradise of warm sandy shores lapped by cool rolling waves perfect for body surfing. Winter transforms it into a raging sea of surging, angry, crashing breakers eating away at the dunes. The blue skies turn metallic gray and the wind makes it difficult to stand upright. It’s a place of majestic beauty, but not a playground for small children. My kids and I confined ourselves to the four walls of the cottage for the duration. The few desperate forays that we took to explore the dune in front of our house began slowly.

It takes quite a long time to bundle four young children into snowsuits, winter hats, mittens, and boots. Usually by the time, I finished gearing up the last child, the first one was unzipping her jacket, complaining, “I’m too hot!”

When we got outside, we trudged to the top of the dune and surveyed the fierce power of the winter lake. By the time, we trekked back to the house, everyone, including me was ready for hot chocolate. The house that had seemed quite spacious when we had first viewed it the previous spring came to feel very cramped as the five spent hours after hour indoors. One blessing of those months was that Johnny was a breast-feeding baby. The oxytocin that flowed into my blood stream during our long sessions of nursing helped me keep my sanity.

We had been promised Christmas in our renovated Chicago home.  Instead, we celebrated it on the dunes, which turned out to be as warm and traditional as we could wish for – right down to the photo of the children and myself coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. Jay took the Christmas break off from work and we had a hilarious New Year’s Eve with the children. I concocted a Chinese dinner. I even baked fortune cookies with handwritten fortunes inside. Unfortunately, they were rock hard and we needed a hammer to get our fortunes out! The break refreshed both Jay and me. Just three more months, the architect promised. We crossed our fingers.

a storm like no other

Then the snows came. Our cottage stood less than ten miles from the Michigan state border and we were swept up in the great Michigan blizzard of 1978.  No one could remember a storm quite like it, but anyone who lived through it remembers it to this day. Massive and powerful, it turned deadly before it was over. In the midst of it, I didn’t feel at all sure my children and I would survive.

Carrie and Kristy were home from school when the January 26 sky turned dark grey.  The National Weather Service had been warning of impending storm, but even they had no idea how big it would be. Within hours blowing snow pummeled our house and the dune, accumulating so quickly it obliterated the children’s play climber within two hours. And it just kept coming.

The South Shore trains stopped running so Jay could not get home. He tried calling us, but the lines were down and while our phone rang, no voice came over.  The snow didn’t stop until Friday afternoon. By then thirty inches had accumulated. The snow covered our ground floor windows and the cottage was eerily dark. Television reception had disappeared, but the radio kept broadcasting.  This connection to the outside world saved my sanity.  The broadcaster was snowed into the station for 48 hours.  At one point, he offered $100 to anyone with a snow mobile who would bring him a six-pack.

Beer was the last thing on my mind. We didn’t lose electricity.  I don’t know why, but simply felt grateful. It was a week before Jay could get home. Even then he had to bribe a taxi driver to bring him to the cottage since the beach road remained dangerous.  The blizzard was over, but not the snows.  Both in Indiana and in Chicago the next few winters would prove to be extremely snowy, but that’s the one that is seared on my memory.

escape from the beach

At the end of February, we knew we needed to get away from winter. We rented a motor and drove south. It was tricky going because the snows followed us all the way over the Appalachian Mountains. After one twisting, turning miles-long drive down a steep mountain side, we pulled into a truck stop for a break.  We piled into the diner for lunch.

One of the truckers ambled over to Jay, “Did you just drive that rig down the highway?” he queried.

“Yep,” my husband said, “And it was damn frightening.”

“My, god, man” the trucker said, “No one’s been on that road all day.  You’re luck you’re alive.”

“Oh,” Jay replied. “I thought it was odd we didn’t run into any other traffic.”

much needed magic

Overall, however, the trip was a great success.  The girls reveled in their first trip to Disney World although after coming out of the Haunted Mansion, Betsy chided Jay, “You shouldn’t have taken me in there.  I’m just a little girl and I was really scared!”

We continued on to Delray Beach to visit Jay’s mother at her condo.  It was great to get out of the trailer and into real digs for a few days before heading back up north.  By that time, there were some signs of spring.

spring revival

With spring comes hope. On Mar 20, we moved back to the city in time to celebrate Easter in our new home.  The house shone with gleaming new woodwork and freshly painted walls. The stained-glass windows now not only sparkled but no longer rattled.  The kitchen appliances were not in working order yet, but our neighbors brought us meals for a week.

I fell in love with 832 Belden the moment I first stepped inside two years before. It had been very dusty and rather dilapidated, but I imagined how love and polish would bring out its true beauty.  It had taken a lot of love and much more than polish to bring it to its present splendid condition, but now its warm, welcoming presence made my heart sing.  My children radiated joy as they claimed their new bedrooms.  Undoubtedly, I would have adored this house under any circumstances, but after our year on the dunes, my appreciation for this wonderful place overwhelmed me with the shear joy of being home at last.

“Life takes you unexpected places. Love brings you home.”