It is a Big Sky up there in Michigan! The first day was warm and sunny with placid water (above). The second day, the clouds were ominous and dark, the water was extremely choppy and looked like the ocean with whitecaps. I was surprised that most of the shoreline was very sandy.
The woods were wonderful, it was very remote, so remote in fact, that when we arrived about 12:45 am in a light rain, I would never have found the lane entrance back to the cabin, but what a cabin it was!
Built in 1933 by my friend's grandmother, a single mother during World War II, who nurtured it through several decades and seasons, it is now enjoyed by the fifth generation of family and friends. We enjoyed reading the "visitor's log" from the forties, to when my friend started bringing her children as babies and beyond.
I feel so privileged to have spent time there, soaked up the peace that resides there. She showed me the place between the logs, where as a child, she lay, perhaps fighting sleep as children do, by pushing her nails into the chinking . The half moons still live there as a testament to her days spent growing and running through the woods and water, living summers with her grandmother. I can almost see Hazel sitting nearby, listening to the child voice of my friend doing some sort of sing-song talking to herself until sleep would finally claim her until morning.
I wondered just how long it would take a grownup to feel like a kid again, with no sense of time, or things to do? We tried to accomplish it. We ate when we were hungry, slept when we were tired, picked up many treasures from the beach, visited the Mackinac (pronounced Mack-in-aw) Bridge up the road (see below), hung towels to flap in the wind on a clothesline to dry. I lugged frozen lobsters all the way from Kentucky for a surprise camp feast which we boiled with the last of the summer sweet corn and new fall potatoes in a big enamel pot.
Yes, there were Smores! Now if you are not familiar with that, it is a marshmallow toasted on the open fire, laid upon chocolate which rests on a graham cracker. Your friend can help you slide it off and give it a lid of a second cracker. The marshmallow melts the chocolate and the whole thing is a gooey mess... a must-have for outdoor dining, (you always want Some More).
Life is comprised of small journeys, small joys, if we can focus on those, our days will be more joyful all together. My friend had a friend to join us that she has not seen in many years; more than two decades, who now has a first book published. I read it long into the night before he came and asked a lot of questions about publishing which he was kind enough to encourage and answer.
I enjoyed listening to snatches of their conversation floating on the wind behind me as we walked the shore to the convergence of a nearby river. No salmon there yet, but I was told that it is the season to watch them cross from the lake to go up-river and spawn.
As with any good camp stay, the time to leave is always too soon, you want it to last longer but real life calls. I did bring home treasures. Crinkly light-grey ground moss to make wreaths; which I will put the scavenged fresh wintergreen and curls of white birch and silvery poplar, pine cones and seagull feathers, weaving my memories into it along the way.
The great find was a loon feather; squared on the end with the tale-tell white squares on black coloring so while I was sad to leave, I was ever so gladdened to have experienced all those little joys strung along in that time, to take out and enjoy again like a book of photographs.
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