For peace comes dropping slow

My parents' camp is a two-acre peninsula in a marsh on the river, and when the extended family gathers for a week-long vacation, most of us bring tents, which we set up under the pine trees on the east side of the peninsula or under the oak trees that face the river. My parents do have a small cabin, sixteen feet by sixteen feet, which my father built before the wetlands legislation of 1972. Six people at the most can fit comfortably around the wooden table in their place, so when we've got about 20 people gathering for a meal, we eat outside on the picnic tables.

The wooden table is used for card games, though, and for breakfast. Since we all get up at different times, with my parents waking up earliest and Boy in Black and With-a-Why the latest, we eat in shifts, often my mother making pancakes on a griddle and serving them to whoever walks sleepily through the door. Whoever can't fit at the table will stand around, drinking coffee or juice, and eventually stumble outside, to go down to the dock to wash up perhaps, or to flop on a quilt in the morning sun and get warm.