My Great Nine-Day Adventure

Day 3
Soaking up the sun this morning as well, there are more fishermen out now than there were yesterday however. It’s 10:20am and the loons are already singing. I’m not sure I ever want to leave this place. I think the north is where I want to buy a house, not here, there are too many houses, but somewhere like this place likely was one hundred years ago.

The loons are my alarm clock calling strong as they mourn, requesting another day’s protection from the motors, from the scorn.

If you go an entire summer without a mosquito bite in Wisconsin you most definitely need to get out more. Last night alone I think I ATE about ten of them on my run.

I saw a squirrel fall out of a tree this morning and calmly paddle back to shore. I think it was my pissed off little friend from yesterday who with a morning starting with a fall from a tree will likely not be any more friendly today.

I love how everyone waves up north. I was running yesterday and each car I passed waved, each boat that drives by the pier I now write on waves. Hell, I have conversations with strangers up here. A man was walking his dog yesterday during my early morning run and I STOPPED RUNNING to discuss the unreasonably warm weather. I’ve told friends before that morning people everywhere are more friendly—seem more trusting of those that get up at six in the morning than those that stay up until 4am.

Up north people are morning people all of the time. I think it’s the winters up here that do it. We all know that in two months we might be relying on a stranger to pull us out of a tough place (namely a ditch). In four months the ditches will be so full of snow that they won’t be distinguishable—but the snow BANKS then prove an even bigger danger because when it goes from “warm” (about 32 degrees) to “chilly” (about ten degrees) they freeze into solid walls of ice. At this point going into the ditch can result in the same amount of damage (and injuries) as a front end collision. You had better hope you waved to your neighbor in September.

My hands might be shaking a bit from the caffeine but I feel GREAT. I heard two gunshots this morning. I wonder what they were shooting at.

As you zoom through the water in your high-fangled state-of-the-art speed boat you fail to see the loons floating gracefully upon the bay. The loons have been there for hours—teaching their young one how to hunt on his own, calling encouragement at his failures and successes.

But you don’t see. Your boat is too fast to notice—the motor too loud to hear the mournful calls that mark their alarm at your fast approach. You fail to see. Spend several hours, days, years on the bay with no motors and no speed. Then tell me of the loons. I will tell you of the silence broken by the unnatural wake of your boat. I will tell you of the floating cigarette butts that washed upon shore after your departure. AND I WILL TELL YOU how close the loons came to bid their thank you to a friend who told you to stop and listen.

Later, 4:30pm:
I was taking a nap upstairs in the house when I heard the loons calling, I didn’t see them on the bay at first. I saw a mink running along the shore, but now I see a loon about one hundred yards from the pier. The loons really are my alarm clock this week.

I now understand all of the grooming I’ve seen them doing and the strange activity of the loons. It looks like they are molting their summer plumage for winter feathers. Their backs are more dull right now than usual, it probably itches. I’ve never been up here at this time of year so it makes sense that I’ve never seen it before.

Wildlife seen today:
Loons
Vultures
Squirrels
Mink
Blue jays
crows
Chipmonks
Wildlife heard today:
Loons
Crows
Ducks
Squirrels

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