Enough & everything

a dispatch & photos from the field

writing from the porch of a tiny house on Lake Winnebago

My phone’s camera cannot truly capture the beauty of sunrise and moonrise on the lake. And I still keep trying. How can this advanced technology not do better than my imperfect eyes? Next I turn to words. I play with words, stringing them together, striving to do justice to the extravagant movement of the earth and its moon.

an attempt to capture the sunrise with my phone

Sunrise

In the morning, I see first a touch of orange on the far side of the lake, then a line of orange spreading across the horizon and rippling toward me through clouds and gentle waves. Trees stand darkly at attention on my side, waiting for their bit of sun. There’s a pallet of blues and grays from shore rocks to lake to sky. A pop of yellow catches my eye on the shore. It’s toad flax, sometimes called butter and eggs. I hear waves gently lapping against the rocks, the cooing of mourning doves, the chirping of crickets, the crunch of shells under my feet. There are human-made sounds too - fishermen at the nearby boat launch, a train’s horn, and the hum of traffic on a highway not far off from here. When the sun finally breaks onto this side, a cacophony of bird chatter explodes. And my senses are awake to all that’s waking up around me.

cheerful toadflax

Moonrise

At night - at first, there is nothing but the lights of human making. And then slowly the moon emerges as we sit by our little fire. The water is lapping, the fire is crackling. The orange disk transforms to yellow as it rises and illuminates the lake. A little while later, a beak emerges from behind the large tree on the shore. It’s a sandhill crane, we think. It comfortably passes us by as we sit quietly. He or she dips occasionally into the lake to catch some morsel or not. In the darkness, we can’t truly see. We share a very companionable silence with the crane, however, for 15 minutes or maybe more. Eventually the crane flies off to other shores. Leaving us in awe.

our lakeside companion

This. This is enough. This is more than enough. This is everything. This beautiful precious planet and all the miracles it holds. Can you see it? I do. And sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I think too much about strictly human things. I forget our interconnectedness with everything around us. Always I strive to see it, though, even as the mosquitos feast on my legs. Even they play a part in the intricate dance of our planet.

an attempt to capture the moon

***

In “Simple summertime solace,” I wrote about how it’s been a different sort of summer for me. These few days in a very tiny house on a nearby lake have been a nice first and last trip of the summer. A way to savor summer and also to mark its traditional end. Maybe you’ve traveled across the country or even across the globe this summer. Maybe you’ve taken some local trips. Maybe you’ve savored the delights in your own backyard. Whichever way, I hope you’ve found respite in the joyful aliveness and exuberance of the summer season.

Thanks for reading.

Gratefully,

Mary