February Blues

We waited weeks for six days last October when we could spend time at a quiet place on the north shore of Lake Superior. Finding time to rest, taking time to come apart for renewal and refreshment has been one of my long-winded topics. I tire of too much muchness. I don’t think it is just me, I suspect many of us suffer want in this area. Sometimes we need to be way away.

Back of Morning Light

We have been at this place before and I long for it. Long to be away from the busyness of my life. Selfishly, in the days preceding, I hold my breath and pray that no one will die, forcing me to cancel plans. We arrived at “Morning Light” late in the day and turned down the track that winds through birch and bracken, scattered black spruce and fir, tawny grasses growing thigh-high right up to the car doors and up to the back of the simple cabin which is all dark and closed. The air is filled with the resinous scent of pines and poplar trees that have dropped their leaves in drifts. Only one small window shows on the second floor, but when you walk through the back door, through the darkened entry hall, it opens to a view of the entire horizon from east to west. Light floods from skylights and the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows across the front. Even gray days cannot staunch the light.

Morning is breaking

The first morning, as I woke, from our bed I could see a faint, faint line of light on the other side of the world and quietly moved to a living room chair with a cup of hot tea to wait for dawn. The morning stars were still visible. How to describe this, this pre-historic daily show with colors that flare and spread? If you name them they sound commercial. Artificial. Yet they pre-date the earth. God-made lemon-yellows and melons began pushing against the dark-violet sky. They stain and slowly creep up the sky like water-color paint seeping across paper. Then, suddenly fire appears – the bright oranges and reds of a blast furnace burns under the line until the round globe of sun springs above it. It’s rays blaze my retinas. I close my eyes and still see it clearly. Now it touches my face and how is it that it does not burn but only comforts?

 

Lake Superior is cold and empty. This is its appeal. Nothing. Nothing. No boats, no yachts, no humans, only an eagle drifting and a few low-flying ducks pumping past inches above the waves. Sky and water framed by a tortured spruce and the shoreline of boulders and rock cliffs. No distractions, just the endless rollers, breaking, breaking, breaking. My mind and heart feel scrubbed. Scoured. Cleansed.

Warmed by the sun

 

That night a storm blew in and the next morning I couldn’t see beyond the white foam of the first breakers. The wind blew and rain beat against the windows. God, tracking me through storms. I could stay here forever. I think.