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!

Miracle

Here’s what just happened.

I was out reading your blogs, buzzing here and there in the blogosphere for the past hour or so, when suddenly a Fierce Desire struck.  I’m never sure what to do about these Fierce Desires to write blogs, tell stories.  Do you simply allow your typing fingers to have their way?  Or do you attempt to discipline your Fierce Desires into some semblance of order, telling them that they must incubate until morning’s light, or perhaps stay silent until next Tuesday?

I try asking my Heart (which is always the best thing to do) but the Heart feels divided. Or perhaps it’s impossible to hear the heart because too many thoughts are adding their opinions.  So to heck with it, you’ll have to bear with another essay, or perhaps you’ll wander away to look elsewhere on your computer at Tonight’s News or maybe your friend’s latest posting on Facebook.

There’s a story I’ve been wanting to tell you, but haven’t figured out how or where to fit it in.  It has to do with glasses.  Barry’s glasses, to be exact.  I suppose you’re thinking this might be a boring story, but it isn’t.  It’s high excitement!  (At least it was to us.)

View One. The Infamous Glasses.

View Two. The Infamous Glasses

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

Red and white

I used to think truth was something simple.

Something one felt.  Something essential.  Something easily revealed.

After years of meditation–and the practice of blogging–it becomes more and more apparent that, yes, Truth is very simple.  But it’s extremely complicated to convey it to oneself or another person.

Most of the time we humans tell half-truths to each other.  We pick and choose what to tell.  We announce we think or believe something, conveniently leaving out the actual experience in our lives where we did the opposite.

The crazy purple exploding mess…

I have a story to tell you.  (Do not raise those eyebrows to the sky.  I caught you!  Of course she’s going to tell a story.)

Worst of all, I’m going to tell you a story without photos.  This is a test to see if the story is interesting enough to capture your attention to the messy end where we add the spiritual philosophy to the mix and stir well.

Today’s story deals with making homemade sauerkraut.

I was pondering the different ways we storytellers can tell stories.  Some storytellers tell thus:  I made homemade sauerkraut.  {Here’s how you make it.}  It was good!

Other storytellers share their sauerkraut stories differently.

Some concentrate on details.  Others share the Larger Picture of health benefits.  Still others won’t even tell sauerkraut stories at all, claiming they’re boring.  Still others will ask, “What is sauerkraut?”

But never you mind.  My storytelling mind always goes to the drama.  Was there any drama involved in the creation of homemade sauerkraut?

YES!  *shouts Memory.  THERE WAS DRAMA!  There was high tension.  I kid you not.

 

Why to try the orange toothpaste on your next dental visit.

Earlier this month I had to cancel a dentist appointment.  One of those six month cleanings that we all love.

It was snowing sideways and seemed too daunting to drive twelve miles into town.

“Don’t worry,” said the kind receptionist.  ”It’s been a strange day.  Half the people are cancelling their appointments and half are calling wanting appointments.  We’ll be able to fill your slot.”

Phew…  It’s hard to cancel appointments even when it’s snowing because one is expected to drive valiantly in snow here in the Upper Peninsula.  It’s what hardy Yoopers do.  We gun up our four-wheel drives and barrel through snowbanks, no matter how deep.  (I am not a bona fide Yooper.  Have only lived here 34 years.  Was not born and bred with that much sisu. *Sisu is what the local Finns call courage.*  Would prefer to cancel dental appointments.)

Odd

Hushabye… 2009 photo

This is so odd.

No words have been rising recently.

Have you experienced silent times when nothing–no matter how hard you try–wants to come forth?

When the Universe issues a Silence Decree?

When all the stories dry up and don’t seem worth sharing?

I’ve written two blog posts in the last week, but couldn’t publish them.  They weren’t “bad” posts.  The heart just didn’t agree they should be published.

(I am sneaking this one in before the heart disagrees.  LOL!  You know–if the heart disagrees I’m outa here.)

Tomfoolery of our Santas and Snowmen

Dear readers, it’s just about time to go a’diggin’ down in the basement closet and find our multi-colored Christmas lights and Grandma’s ceramic tree and the reindeer ornament that hangs on the wall by the door.  Don’t forget some garland, and the box for Christmas cards, and that red-and-white Santa pillow, and who knows what else?

Oh, yes, some of you know what else, don’t you sly long-time readers?  Yes, the Santas and Snowmen must come upstairs and find a special place to sit on their tic-tac-toe board.

I really want to introduce you newcomers to the Santas and Snowmen.  (Some of you spotted them in a recent post and admired the way they marched around outside in the snow.) However, I really didn’t want to type the story again.  So I am copying and pasting a blog post which originally ran in Lake Superior Spirit on December 25th, 2010.

(I wrote it just four days after my gall bladder surgery, so it proves that the doctor didn’t remove any sense of humor along with that organ.)

Tomfoolery of our Santas and Snowmen

Finding your way home again

Here is a little story inspired by blog reader Colleen who was fascinated by a recent comment about some of our inky black nights in the woods.  You can’t see your familiar hands, your feet, your journey to the mailbox. 

(Now that the moon stretches into her fat belly every night it’s like soft lamplight amplified by the gleaming of stars.  Except when it’s snowing, and the firmaments hide themselves behind clouds pregnant with heavy white maternity robes.)

When the pregnant moon births our way through the darkness

Sunrise in silence

November sunrise

Sunrises and sunsets sometimes take our breaths away. Our chattering thoughts quiet. We sense the divine, the sublime, that which rises and sets beyond our ordinary perceptions.

A friend on Facebook this morning posted her own sunrise photo accompanied by these heartfelt words: God is GOOD!!! I have tears in my eyes. This is by FAR the most BEAUTIFUL sunrise I have EVER seen. Thank you Lord.

Yesterday morning my mind was busy creating stories while my hands washed breakfast dishes.

Suddenly, the sunrise stained the horizon beyond the skeleton autumn trees pinks and purples and yellows and oranges and blues.

I scurried for the camera.

What exists beyond our stories is amazing.

Wishing you many sunrises and sunsets where the essence of what Life is shines through our busyness, our preoccupation, our novellas of existence.

Blessings, my friends.  Silently sitting beside you as the sun rises and sets.

The summer of the drunken wasps

Wasps love fruit.

First, I do not mean to imply that all wasps are drunks.

No, no.

Most wasps are respectable insect citizens, buzzing to and fro, doing their wasp thing.  They are friendly creatures of our planet, preying upon pest insect species, possibly keeping us safe from unfriendly pest invasions.

This summer, however, the wasp species seems to have tripled (by my casual estimates.)  Everywhere one looks one sees wasps buzzing around.  I am certain that this summer shall forever  be known in our parts as The summer of the wasps.