Blogging to illuminate, to reconcile

Illumination

Lately I have been enjoying writing blogs that seem to reconcile stuck, limited, or judging viewpoints within.

Something arises.  Some judgment, some feeling, some sorrow, something that’s not yet integrated.

Perhaps it has to do with a friendship.  A sense of longing.  Something deep inside which wants to be accepted, yet there’s still a pushing away, a not-allowing. Perhaps it’s an anger, a sorrow, a not-understanding.

I sit and type, letting the deepest self share its thoughts.

Then–instead of turning too quickly in the next moment–or too compulsively looking toward your comments or visits–it seems that the words in the blog are felt on a deeper level.  I feel the truth in the words, to understand, to allow.

It often feels like a big ah-ha of understanding.  It feels like it translates into true realization, into something real which can inform the next action.

Melt

Rushing stream with tiny waterfalls

The Long Winter seems to be exiting just in time for May.  We can only hope.  Last weekend the temperatures soared to about 70 degrees (21 C) and our snow began to melt, melt, melt.

Three

We humans scurried outside, sun and warmth-deprived creatures, and we luxuriated.

I found an old cushion and sat with my back against maples and poplars and spruce, trying to feel the sap rising up my back.

Sat and delighted in Spring.

The light of an ordinary trip through pea soup fog to Marquette

How Lake Superior looks in Marquette

Here we are in Marquette, a town 78 miles from our Little House in the Big Woods.  It’s the Big City, kids.  It even has a Starbucks!  How I love the city–just as much as the woods…

Barry has to cover the Baraga Track Meet for the L’Anse Sentinel.  He–I mean we–have been covering this track meet for more years than you have fingers and toes.

Last year he limped in  to cover aforementioned event with a walker less than two weeks after his first knee replacement.  Oh, wasn’t he cute limping around!  (I wouldn’t know–I don’t stay for the track meet anymore.)  Someone snapped his picture and posted it on Facebook.  He was a sports reporter/hero for five minutes!

Tiptoeing away…

January, 2012. Our Little House in the Big Woods.

You’ve been expecting this, haven’t you?

You’ve been wondering when Kathy is taking another blogging break?

You clever reader.

You know how it goes.  She writes like crazy for months, and then she accelerates and writes every day for a while, and then she announces a blogging break.  Her last 11-day break occurred in December, so it’s been a long time…

She’s gently closing her blogging door and tiptoeing away.  She’ll leave on a night light in case you want to read past stories–or look at past pictures–while she’s mostly off-line for a while.  She won’t even be reading your blogs during her break.  :(

Thank you for your support during The Long Winter by the Shores of Silver Lake  Lake Superior.  (You Laura Ingalls Wilder fans caught the attempt at humor, right?)  I have so appreciated your readership and comments during these long cold northern winter days and nights.  You’ve helped make this heart feel even warmer than sitting by the wood stove with your support and connection.

May you be blessed as the seasons change.  From our Little House in the Big Woods to your neck of the woods…  Love, Kathy

P.S.  Almost forgot to tell you!  Even though haven’t been taking as many pictures as usual during the last year or so, I found enough photos to share a favorite from each month, starting back in January, 2012.  Will leave you with more than a baker’s dozen of memories:

February, 2012. A quiet moment in Nicaragua. (Our nephew married there–an amazing trip to San Juan del Sur.)

Day in My Life: Inside a two-room schoolhouse

Our little two-room school

Imagine you’re a six-year-old in 1911.  You live on a farm about a mile from the nearest neighbor.  It’s time for you to be educated, Ma says.  You’ve got new shoes–your first shoes ever–and you’ll walk with your big brother and sister down that dirt road, maybe three miles, and you’ll start school at a one-room or two-room school.

Your brother will help the other big kids stoke the wood stove that sits in the corner of the classroom.  You’ll eat your lunch out of a silver pail and make friends with perhaps the only other 1st grade student and you’ll play outside at recess even when it’s ten below zero (-23 C).  And you won’t freeze to death.  You’ll walk the three miles back home and do chores before supper.  Then you’ll start your homework.

Easter on ice, 2013

Hello world!

Picture this. Ice fishing over 280 feet of water on Lake Superior. Floating on 18 inches of ice.  Convinced by husband to leave warm house on Easter morning. No one else on ice, except one lone snowmobiler. Everyone else at church.

We celebrated Easter Services in tent.

Husband snapped this picture.

Coffee was enjoyed in the fellowship hall.

The fish have not risen. Yet.

The Point and Shoot Conundrum

Canon Rebel.

I am trying to make a decision.

The kind of decision where you think of every possible related fact, feeling and eventuality.

Would you mind if I shared the latest conundrum here?

We crazy kids drive off during a Winter Storm Warning

So what did we do yesterday while the weather service issued a Winter Storm Warning?

What did we do, you ask?

We drove 80 miles to Marquette for an overnight getaway!  And guess what?  Hardly a snowflake!  Roads almost completely dry.  Sun almost shining through the veil of clouds.

Not the motel where we’re staying. But I liked this sign!

What a difference a day makes!

It’s melting, it’s melting…

Today the sun is shining in Lake Superior land.

It’s 20 degrees and the hockey game’s on…  (Sorry, Jimmy Buffett fans, I can’t help myself quoting his lyrics lately.)  The only part of the last sentence that is true is that it’s 20 degrees. (-7 C for all of you who have no American affiliation.) It’s stunningly warm!

The freezer is still intact, thank you kindly, Jimmy Buffett.

Sum-sum-summertime!

Yesterday I vetoed the on-line world.

Almost.  Did not visit Facebook or WordPress or even my personal email.  (Did visit email and Internet at work.  One must, you know, if one seeks to retain one’s job.)