Fifty minutes and an entire vibe shift away from the heart of Atlanta lies the northern part of Lake Lanier, a literal reservoir and figuratively the repository of definitional memories for our family.  A boating clan from before I was born, the lake is part of the pantheon of watercourses on which the Voborils have recreated over the years –  a long interlude between the jellyfish-laden waters of Long Island Sound and the mighty rivers of the West, with sojourns, among other places, through the canals of Amsterdam and off the shores of the French Atlantic and Spanish Mediterranean.

In the middle of my high school years, my folks procured a lake house.  Over the ensuing decade, Lake Lanier was the epicenter of our existence, the locus of blissfully chill moments and witness to energetic debauchery.  Whether it was just the four of us waiting out a thunderstorm on the covered porch or the structural and proverbial integrity of the home being tested by blowout parties, an incredibly high percentage of foundational moments happened on or adjacent to this dammed-up portion of the Chattahoochee and Chestatee Rivers.

No matter how late the prior night went, the ski boat was up and running in the early morning, all of us eager to take pulls on the glassy surface, the adrenaline of high-speed turns blowing out the cobwebs.  After a Michel McMuffin or two, there was usually time for a mid-morning nap before the day’s crew of friends and family arrived.  Infinite circles of our local coves with a rotating cast of characters are now a mélange of beautiful memories, all of them coalesced into a warm feeling of care and love and fun.

Collective dinners on the massive outdoor table were a cacophonous delight.  Old friends and strangers alike shared in the radiating joy and the mouthwatering meals, just as they bonded over quiet beers on the dock or exploits attempting flips on the wakeboard.  The lake house had a functioning front door, but it never served to exclude anyone that wanted to enter, it being a place of unbounded welcome.  My parents not only tended to us, but were the patriarch and matriarch of a gorgeously eclectic extended family.

The lake house life hit its apex in the two years after my brother’s and my graduation from college and law school, respectively, when we were living together in the city and escaping to Lanier at every possible opportunity.  Soon though, we were both off to Colorado for the next phase of our lives and the house saw much less use, leading my parents to trade it out for a place in the mountains.  It was a natural outcome, the mountains being another important geography for the family, but there was undoubtedly a twinge of sadness to leave those glorious lake years behind.

Presently though, I sit on the deck of a very similar abode just around the corner from our former lake home, the family reconvened at Lake Lanier for a trip down memory lane.  Over the past two weekend days, scores of our friends, some of whom we haven’t seen since the day that the lake house was sold, have poured through the door and onto the dock.  At multiple times over the weekend, I had to reaffirm that it was actually 2025 and not 2005, so swiftly did we all reembrace the rhythms of lake house living.

The easiest way to tell the difference between the two time periods was that, despite internally feeling that no time had passed, despite my inner child being remarkably present, there was an entire new generation in tow.  From toddlers to teenagers, there was a swarm of youthful energy present.  Our children and those of our friends met and connected over the simple pleasures of tubing and boat riding and dock jumping as the parents floated in the pleasantly warm fresh water, catching up and reminiscing.

No matter where we end up geographically, no matter what triumphs and tragedies befall us, Lake Lanier will always hold a magical sway, will always be a place to which we can return and not only recapture our past, but enjoy our present and plot our future.  The lake is a place that exists outside of time and space, an outpost on the journey of our lives, at once a symbol and an anchor.  With red clay between my toes and cicadas buzzing in my ears, I am home once and forever.