I moved back to Evanston when I was thirty-five. I wasn't born here but I grew up here. This place took me from penny candy to college. And now, as I live here again, I find myself revisiting my past. I travel back through my life as I travel the streets, never knowing when I will encounter old places, hidden memories, or ghosts of my younger self. Who is that little girl? She seems like a stranger. I retreat from the past, at the same time I run towards it.

It's the lake I am most drawn to. The lake defined my Evanston life in so many ways. I remember what my father used to say when he gave people directions to our house, and how it made me laugh. "Drive until your hat floats," he said. He still says it and it still makes me smile.

When I was a child, summer lasted forever and the lake was my eternal kingdom. Being at the water's edge was so different from home, even though it was only a few blocks away. It was cooler. The air had a tang to it. The sounds were different. The shrieks of the children, the conversations on towels, the lifeguard's whistles, all were curiously muted, indistinct. Only the waves and the cries of the gulls stood out. Once underwater, I heard nothing at all except the sounds of the lake itself.

I used to stay in the water until my lips turned blue and my teeth chattered. I swam alone and with friends. We played tag, we stood chest deep and talked, we made plans for the weekend and shared our secret hearts' desires.

One year my best friend and I found a huge inner tube in the alley. Together with her two brothers and my one, we rolled the tube down to the water after the beach closed. The tube was big enough to hold three of us. We had wars over who sat on it. Another year we all pitched in and bought a homemade sailboat at a garage sale. It was a slab of foam with a pole stuck in the center and a faded yellow sail. It didn't sail well but we used to sit on it in the water and laugh until our stomachs hurt.

Sometimes I looked straight out, to where the water met the sky. It didn't feel at all like Evanston then. I could be anywhere. I could be in Wisconsin or in California. Going to the beach was a mini vacation. When I walked home, I felt sadness like when a family trip ended and we were driving east on Dempster from the interstate.

As I got older, I made my way down the Evanston beaches. First was Lee Street, the family beach. Then in junior high, it was Greenwood Beach where the teenagers hung out. Later it was Clark Street, with its older crowd and Northwestern boys. Then came college. I spent summers in school, or working, or staying in my college town. The beach became part of summers past, assigned to memory like riding bikes out to Nomansland for ice cream or going to the drive-in. When I came back to Evanston, I always walked down to the lake to say hello, as if it were another of my childhood friends. Unlike them, the lake never changed.

And now, as an adult, I return again.

I go to Lee Street to swim. The beach looks almost the same as it did then but there are a few differences. You can take your shoes off earlier now. They have a ramp that goes almost to the water. The beach tokens, like the kids' pails and shovels, aren't metal any more. I remember how the shape changed each year, from circles to stars to diamonds. Now they're plastic. The entrance isn't by the bathrooms any more. The little foot showers are gone. Now they allow food but still no inner tubes or floats.

There seem to be less people at the beach. The little kids are here but where are the older ones? At their various scheduled activities or away at camp most likely. And what about the grownups? Perhaps they are at the health club, or working. Perhaps they think the lake is for children, or have forgotten that it's here.

Some things haven't changed at all: the rocks at the edge, the sounds, the feel of the cool water. I still enter the water the same way I used to. I wade out until it's cold on my stomach and then I dive in. I'm not a serious swimmer. I do my laps but sometimes I stop in the middle and loaf. I float on my back and watch the clouds passing. I tread water and look out at the horizon. I still pretend I'm someplace else, Ireland maybe, or Bora Bora. I stand in water up to my chin and look back at the beach.

I used to think I would bring my kids to this beach. There we'd be, just like the mother and children over there, the kids dumping water in a hole, splashing around while she watches from the blanket a few feet away, chatting idly with a friend, taking it all for granted.

Not everything in life works out. I guess that's one of the lessons we learn as we age. But when I'm swimming, out there where I hear nothing but the waves, that doesn't matter. Out there, I meet her again in the water, the young girl I was. I'm the woman of today, and at the same time, I'm her. She is part of me. Out there, I believe again that summer does last forever and all my dreams will come true.