Idylwood
By Julia Bychowski
April 26, 2026
Graphic by Alex Lekhakul
Counting our fund for the ice-cream shack, brushing the spiky branches that crept into the sidewalk, my friends and I giggled as we bounded towards the park. It was springtime in Washington, and the first day in months where the water in the lake could be entered with a brisk squeal, rather than a yelp. When I moved here years earlier, I had resolved that the lake was the only thing I could ever like in this grey, damp place. I could feel the pebbly sand under my feet and the foamy waves on my shins at a moment’s notice. My pessimistic view had softened as the years passed – floating away like the tide with every friend I encountered and memory I made.
Four sets of flip-flopped feet passed the park entrance, which, instead of a sign, was marked with a great evergreen tree. Idylwood Park: a name so accurate it was a little ironic. Curtained on both sides with sweeping forest, the park most certainly had wood. I could usually count on the beach being idle, given Seattle’s notorious gloom. Wood chips flew in our wake as we scurried down the path toward the water, and I realized this day was no different.
The sand lay there, a beige sheet beneath the ebb and flow of the lake. We spread out our multicolored towels in a perfect line, tossing our flipflops into the sand that was already gathering between our toes. We didn’t care about grace or elegance – terms clashing with youth – and we raced to where the water gathered in a froth on the shore. We jumped in with a freedom that now, pushing into adulthood, would be labeled as carelessness. But as we sent splashes of salt water into the air and into our mouths, spitting at the briny taste, we couldn’t imagine a world where anything was wrong.
Graphic by Alex Lekhakul
Unbeknownst to me, that was my last visit to Idylwood Beach. After our fingers pruned, and our ice-cream fund ran out, my friends and I gathered our towels into sandy bundles and said goodbye as we walked back through the neighborhood. A virus would soon sweep across the globe, and I’d end up in Texas, a near antithesis of everything I knew in Washington. I’d pack my life into boxes, and see my friends in the square of a video call. And the lake, caught in eternal motion, would ripple on without me.
At first, I’d often think of the beach, and my home among the evergreen trees. As the years drew on, however, my yearning for that green place dissipated. There were beaches in Texas, and even better, there was sun – blaring down even in the depths of winter. The abundance of perfect weather in my new home rendered any slightly cloudy day dreary, rather than inviting. And when I remembered the water of the lake, I’d see it green and dull, when years before, it was all turquoise and glitter.
It wasn’t until I found myself groaning at the sight of rain droplets on my car windshield that I realized what I’d become. How could I let the color of the sky, or the precipitation in the air impose a spiritless day before it’d even begun? When I used to embrace the storm with open arms, strolling to the beach with not a care in the world? I missed when the world arranged itself around me in brilliant saturation, no matter what was in front of me.
I reach for the memory of that lake now – snatched from underneath the sunny lakes I’d replaced it with. But I don’t mourn the past, I borrow something from the girl that made those memories. I let the light that guided me through a gilded childhood keep me from fearing grey skies, and chase the carefree joy that drew smiles on that beach in Idylwood. ■
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