“…for Old Crane Woman knows that inspiration comes always at the side of the water, there on the edge, in that troubling threshold place between one element and another. Don’t startle her: she’ll be gone in a flash. If you wait there, just as still as she is, for as long as it takes, maybe you’ll hear her whispering a story. Listen to her story; Old Crane Woman is the power of place, speaking.”
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Today I took a walk in a place that I have been before. More than a year has passed, and the season lends the landscape almost entirely different, but like a face you have seen before, I came to the clearing of the beach with an immediate recognition. Perhaps it was a shared recognition; me remembering the place and the place remembering me. That thought brings me nearly to tears.
I follow the hand drawn map, down a sloped one lane road, likely gravel, though the snow and ice will not allow me to see what lay under. The heavy pines close in and suddenly give way to the lake. But the usual greeting does not come. Typically meeting a lake of this size, even much smaller lakes, there is a hearing before seeing. The waves crash against a rocky coast or sand soft beach. On a particularly rough day you may see the swells, but today I am given neither sight nor sound of such a thing, merely the opening up of the trees. Then utter silence.
Last time we met, it was overcast and grey, much like today. Perhaps that is why we recognize each other. I am much more bundled today, coming properly in snow pants and heavy coat, gloves, hat and boots. Last time there was such a hazy appearance, perhaps it is more clear today, I can see to the other side in some places. But as I step down onto the beach, I know for certain what my mind is guessing at.
I stand at the delta of where the Amnicon River meets Lake Superior. Both the river and lake are frozen, but evidence of their continuous movement during the process is striking. The colors of the frozen water vary from almost clear black, to muddy brown. Air pockets create perfectly encased cream colored bubbles which look like some kind of Chihuly piece. Sediment and sand trapped in ice, crossing the threshold of river and lake, it is now caught in between.
I find a piece of driftwood, a walking stick to use to test the ice, but it is so solid, there is little need. Still, I have never been here, at the frozen lakes edge, so wild and raw. I hear a boom and realize it is the ice. A sigh. A shift. Not to be taken lightly, I cautiously follow the beach. The sand gives way much more than I expect. There is snow underneath that has given the sand a voluminous appearance, but like packing peanuts, my foot sinks through. I find the delta, the solidly frozen spot to cross to the beach on the other side. I walk along the beach for a while, seeing familiar things, burnt logs from beach fires, driftwood, pebbles, feathers and trash. And snow. The component that makes everything feel so different. The further I walk the more I want to go out further, out onto the waves, frozen in time, mid swell. I abandon my walking stick so I can use both hands to climb up and down, to steady myself on the icy surface. It is rough, very rough in spots. Like frosted rubble. Then its smooth like the surface of a quiet pond. Then small caves, rounded and hollow. It is like an alien landscape, like the spot I remember is wearing a mask.
I climb to the last peak and flatten my body to a half-sit half-lay, viewing the first bit of open water. It is now that I can hear it, slow waves lap against a slushy shore that it has created out of itself. Shards of ice like piles of glass are scattered along it with countless formations of water, frozen sculptures. The tide feels like a labored breath. But strong enough to crack any of the ice in an instant. Small floes float out a ways, and all rise together as the wave moves.
I sit here for quite some time. I have no idea how long. Maybe not long at all. My leg begins to feel the chill from the ice boulder I am sitting on. I get up and look back, realizing how much lake stands between me and the sandy shore. I am on the edge. I am in the in between, standing on frozen water, suspended in the air by the lake itself. I am walking on water. I am between the air and the water and the stone.
It is remarkable that I get to experience this liminal space.
I walk back to my place and see a porcupine in a tree. I thought I saw him on the walk in, but part of me thought it was just a squirrels nest. I gave him a warm greeting and well wish for the rest of the winter. I said hello to the alpaca at the property next door, the guinea fowl perched in the trees peering at me nervously. I spoke to the woodpeckers bobbing through the woods, telling everyone I was here. And the crow, high above calling to who know who.
I have only passed through here once, but it as if this place said yes, I remember you. It didn’t give away any of its secrets. No, I think I would have to return many more times to hear those.
“Connection isn’t about nature in our service, a slave to our needs, a commodity for our use, a sticking-plaster for our stresses. Nature isn’t there to provide us with therapy; that isn’t what connection is about. Connection is about love. Enchantment. Wonder. And a necessary and appropriate sense of awe.”
What remarkable writing of space and place. It look me there, on that waters edge. Floating!
Returning to a place…”me remembering the place and the place remembering me”…sitting with breath in that.
A knowing that you may always be able to return to a place yet how different it may be…and a revealing of secrets! What poetry.
This writing is gorgeous!
Good thoughts!