My Great Nine-Day Adventure

Day 1

Got up here at around 4pm today and already (it’s 8:30) I find myself settling in. The simplicity of the days ahead of me is exciting. A jigsaw puzzle, perhaps a swim, early morning runs. Not opening a computer for days—ah—it’s like I’ve finally exhaled after two years of holding it in.

I’m alone up here (not counting the neighbors who are up now too). It will be my first time up here entirely alone as well as my first time doing a lot of things alone. I don’t feel alone in this house though. There are too many happy memories filling it up for that.

I look to the backyard and don’t see an empty lake—no—I see luges coated with water while our parents weren’t looking. I see my Little Mermaid saucer sled zipping down the luge at the front of a train. (The way that memory ends isn’t particularly happy, but with over ten years to dull it, it’s funny now).

I sit now at the dining room table and I don’t see three empty chairs. To the contrary—I see it full with a blue Fischer Price table nearby holding several more bodies. I hear laughter at the first play through of Apples to Apples—I hear my younger brother’s cries as he tries to explain he broke his arm on a four wheeler.

I see all of this and so much more. I’m far from alone. I have twenty years worth of memories to fill these walls.

I think that this will be a fruitful week as far as writing goes. I hope to get some amazing photography as well—both passions that I have allowed to lay dormant for far too long.

I also need to think about what I plan to do next year. School in Minnesota? Or the more drastic choice to move west to Oregon—a state I have never been to but somehow know is a place I belong. I need to stop even considering staying in Wisconsin in my wage slave technical writing job as an option. I need to remember to dream before I forget how to altogether.

Wildlife seen today:

2 Bald Eagles

2 Blue Jays

3 Bats

Animals heard today:

Ducks on Lake