On one of the prettiest days of the year, mid-summer, in Chautauqua County upstate New York, I sat on the porch at a shop called the Gypsy Moon, on Lakeside Drive in Bemus Point.

In addition to being my favorite consignment shop in the area, it’s a place I’ve come to love well. Why? From the wide front porch, I can look back on my youth, figuratively speaking, right there shimmering out in the bay, that stretch of water from town to Long Point and Sunset Bay beyond.

Gypsy Moon – it’s a name that suggests movement, a wild abandon maybe, some witchery. Maybe that’s part of the charm. The shop itself takes up most of the first floor of an old Gothic Victorian house that sits across from the shore. The house is old, 19th century, needs paint and sprucing up perhaps, but despite all that or because of it, it’s utterly charming and commands one of the best views of the lake. And when I sit there as I did on a Sunday afternoon with my friends–Diana, who works there, and Michelle, both colleagues and good friends whose company I treasure–I get a bit lost in the past. That day, we sat all afternoon with drinks in hand, snacks on the table, on the comfortable old wicker furniture. A basket of deep purple petunias hung from the rafter and swayed in the wind. The waves slapped the shoreline. From that spot, I stared out over Bemus Bay right back into my youth.

For it was on Bemus Bay where I was just a yellow haired girl of 16 and 17, wind in my face, bronzed tan, and too young to worry about a thing, too silly to have any aspirations yet. It was a blithe time, boating on Chautauqua Lake and simply being young. Oh, it was glorious, those days of youth, the body at its physical best and the mind free of worldly concerns. And I was there with my great love, father of my children, in the first years we spent together. Those two summers changed us forever, changed the course of our lives.

But like this consignment shop with its fine old things, I am filled with memories of that special time from a half century away. I have two fine sons from that union, that marriage, two grown men now I could not imagine living without in this world. That’s the joy of children, isn’t it? That they become our lives. They are our past and our present, both. Now I’m older and sit on the porch of a lovely Victorian house with its own secrets and its own memories. Three hours pass as my friends and I laugh and chat, looking out over Bemus Bay. It’s one of the hottest days of the year, but the breeze is cool. We talk of everything–jumping from topic to topic seamlessly as women who like each other do, retelling our stories, laughing and remembering.

Tourists fill the sidewalks in a steady stream. Most nod hello as they pass into the shop beyond and out of it again. My friend Michelle and I shop too, off and on, weaving in and out of the three downstairs rooms of this grand old house like little girls in their grandmother’s attic. We find our own treasures: Michelle finds three tops. She grins when she tries them on for us, when we compliment her. Her cheeks are flushed from the wine, sunlight, summer.

My friend Diana comes from Australia. Her accent is slight and endearing. I love to hear it. She has a sassy humor and sharp wit. She’s the best dressed woman I know. She’ll say, “Oh this!” And point down at her outfit. “This is second hand. I’m just a second-hand rose.” And I will say again, “You’re the best-dressed person I know.” We both laugh. She has an eye, you know? She can put things together with a certain artistry — a dress, a top, a scarf slung just so, a big handbag, a pair of sunglasses, the right jewelry though never too much. Isn’t that a skill we need in life? To put on our stuff, to dress our persona? To put ourselves together, no matter how old or young, and walk out into the world? We are all gypsies in this world.

On this glorious summer day, we three feel unique and special too like this shop, like this fine old house with its good bones.