Northern Ontario, Canadian Shield. Camping in August is: clambering over boulders to get to the water; blazing hot days relieved by cool lakes; padding along a soft carpet of fragrant pine needles to get to the tent; watching the embers of the fire with my family all around.

I push off a rock at midnight into the deepest lake, float on my back in water gleaming like mercury, and watch the shooting stars fly through the sky. I wish: this, forever. A loon calls in the distance.

Sunday afternoon, getting ready to leave. Dad is sitting on the ground in the shade against a tree. He is wearing jeans and his camping bucket hat that he's had for at least 40 years. I take a photo. I play in the lake with the kids for hours, thinking up games that do not involve me launching them into the water. And then my sister is there beside me- we look to the beach and my mom has the sleeping baby and we are suddenly free. We swim away from the rest of the family - boyfriends, husbands, our cousins and their kids, and then it is just the two of us, bobbing and laughing, somersaulting and splashing and dancing in the water like we always have. The sky is blue and the water is so cool and I can't remember the last time i felt this light, almost effervescent, with this particular kind of joy, when nothing matters but this moment in this lake with my sister, my first and best friend.

8:24 a.m. - 2018-08-17