Pretty Things

When you change your routine, regardless of reason or desire, it is difficult to re-calibrate your day. A rainy day is a writer's best friend, and a visit to the big lake (Lake Huron, for those of you who aren't familiar with this blog), brings me back to my organic roots.

Oh, how I treasure this life, our lakes, and the written word. Even when I'm never here, I'm always here.

Pretty Things.

A freighter drifts out of the mist.
We watch it crawl along the horizon.
Two girls braid their hair in the shallows

and a woman in a red bathing suit
and pink bandanna looks for something pretty.
A twin engine plane putts overhead

following the shoreline, putt, gasp! putt.
Buoys that mark the safe swimming boundary
bounce as a speed boat skims by.

Sail boats peak the horizon, bothering nobody,
seemingly not moving, but when you look back, they are gone,
swallowed by a lake that makes pretty things.

One ale later, we have to turn our heads to see the freighter
chugging for the straits with determination
and the woman is on her knees, looking for something pretty.

The Great Lakes Review

There is a breakwater on Lake Huron not too far from us that protects the harbor and marina. I walked out on it as far as I dared, then wrote about what and who I saw. The Great Lakes Review accepted my essay for publication and this morning it went live!

Lake Huron is beautiful and inviting, regardless of the season.

The narrative map series they are running is an awesome project, and I wanted to share. They're looking for more literary sketches to fill in their map.

Good luck with what you're writing and painting and doing this week!

Questions and Conundrums

Midsummer thoughts: When the shift in daylight hours is gradual, why do you suddenly notice the shorter days as a drastic change? We could power this country on solar even on the darkest days. Where is the political will to stand up to the fossil fuel industry? I want a solar panel on the top of my car and one on my roof. I don't need one like the farm has. But I sure am proud of the farm and brother John and father Bob who made it all happen.

Midsummer grumbling: When Hilary Clinton is on television, why do people comment on her hair and her age and her clothes when no such questions are asked of male diplomats and politicians? Why has Barack  Obama turned gray in 3 1/2 years while George Bush never changed a whit in 8? Why don't people talk about the real cause of this summer's record heat and drought conditions? Why aren't weather reports serious instead of focusing on picnic plans and baseball games? Why don't they teach geography in school? Why do weeds grow faster when you go away for a weekend? Why do zucchini turn into small canoes overnight?

I like my leaders to show wear and tear and sleepless nights. When the weight of the world has been upon them, I like to know they have known it. I like women in power who are smart and articulate and know their geography. I don't care about their hair, anymore than I care about Mitt's doo or Mitch O'Connell's forehead (Republican leader in the Senate) and the frown lines he's developed from the nastygrams he composes in his sleep. I want earth to remain blue with an unbroken ozone shield and thick ice caps. I like normal weather where the highs and lows balance each other out, instead of the 10-1 recorded in the last year. I like snowstorms and thunderstorms with the reporting of the same above a 4th grade level. I like gardens free of Monsanto poison and my zucchini voracious. When they grow into canoes, we hollow them out and set them out to sea.

Lake Huron, our big shining sea, the middle child in the Great Lakes family, the national treasure that belongs to all.

Who's Visiting You?

I recently added a flag counter to my blog and have been amazed at the number of countries represented. I don't know how accurate it is, but I wish I would have done it sooner. If you're just starting a blog, I would recommend adding one. It's easy and fun to see where your readers are coming from. It makes the world seem intimate and small, which in the grand scheme of things, I guess it is.

It's a very foggy morning in the thumb of Michigan, a sure harbinger of fall, but summer temperatures are still with us for the Labor Day weekend. I hope to have time to visit "our" lake. Lake Huron is beautiful still, at least on the surface.

There are disturbing reports of pollution from coal-burning power plants and invasive species lurking in the depths and I hope that the people in charge of our environmental protection agencies know what they're doing.

I say "our" because the lakes are public as are the shorelines and beaches. The public is entitled to access up to the high water mark (an ambiguous boundry, I admit) but private landowners like to discourage the public from enjoying the access they are entitled to. They think of the lake in front of their property as theirs. The lakes belong to all of us and I encourage people who live here or are visiting here to feel free to walk the shoreline. Find an access point and walk.

To not spend time on or beside these basins of beauty is a sacrilege. Fish, skip stones, swim, hunt for shells and driftwood and collect pebbles, capture the beauty on your camera or canvas. All any of us would ask when you visit is that you leave nothing behind to show you were here....except something like this:

Fred Bear

How do I describe the big lake to you in the face of a hard north wind that waters my eyes and takes my breath away? How can I even begin to show you what I see? OK, I’ll try, because it’s worth trying. And please forgive me if my efforts fall short, for even a picture doesn't capture the feel of a place-the magnetic pull, for instance, at a certain location by the Dead Sea called Jericho, or the aura of the Grand Canyon at sunset. I can look at pictures in the National Geographic where the best are published, but will I feel the depth of the gorge in the pit of my stomach?

Lake Huron is a shimmering mirage, a frozen landscape of jagged ridges and valleys—waves caught in the freeze-frame of February. At first glance it appears solid, like a snow-covered field, but then the undulating movement of the surface in sync with the swells below it, captures the eye. Like the sands of Dune, the whole thing is heaving with the power of what lies beneath. It mesmerizes like the head of a cobra. I cup my mittened hands around my eyes to block the wind and stare. Further out, in open water, jagged ice floes peak the horizon like sailboats. This monster of a lake with the reach of an ocean has always amazed me.

One lone ice fisherman walks the bank with his backpack and his pail and walking stick. He tramps carefully in cleated boots. He is prepared, bundled up like a Sherpa guide. I am not. I don’t have my camera (so you’ll never believe this), I don’t have my long underwear, and I don’t have my boots. What I am is crazy, and what I have is a new haircut with caramel highlights still damp from the salon, hidden by the scarf wound tight around my head for this impromptu walk on the breakwater. When I realized I was only three miles from the lake, I knew I would keep going. How does anyone turn their back on this water? I’ve never been able to figure that out. I’ve never been able to do it.

I wrap my scarf over my mouth and walk along the railing of the breakwater to where the sand turns to ice, afraid to go further, afraid I’ll slip or my scarf will blow away and I’ll be tempted to chase it, afraid I’ll fall off the edge onto the shifting ice.

He is Fred Bear. It says so on the back window of the pickup truck I parked alongside. Just drill that hole his bumper sticker encourages his fellow fishermen. With the bad economy, ice fishing is on the uprise. It doesn’t cost anything and you can bring dinner home. I like a man bullish on winter, one who can bring dinner home. There are only the two of us out here. If I get in trouble, will he save me? If I get frostbit, will he unthaw me?

I start back for the car. I can’t keep up with him. I walk past park benches and frozen fountains. I walk past the restaurant that used to be the summer hot spot. The view was destroyed when they built the marina and extended the breakwater and now it’s shuttered, like the dancehall and the roller rink. Only the lake is still the same.

I walk past his truck with the bumper stick innuendo and hop in my little Ford and turn on the heat. I shake out my hair and laugh. The damp tendrils on my neck are frozen stiff. Oh, Fred, if I had my long underwear on I’d go out with you and help drill that hole.