Welcoming Winter

October 27th and the schools are closed in Duluth, Minnesota. Sixty mile per hour winds and snow, not falling gently, but blowing sideways. Twelve ships have found safe harbor here and are waiting out the storm. They are saying this storm is more severe than the ferocious northwest winds and seas that washed as high as eight to 12 feet over the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975 taking her down to the bottom of Lake Superior.

The fire is roaring. I sit and listen to the crackle and hiss of snow covered wood. It is a contemplative mood. I have been parked under a down throw answering emails, searching through recipes and gathering thoughts for future muse. The end of October seems entirely too early to be welcoming winter. The animals are already beside themselves for what to do in doors all day long. I have more than enough to entertain myself and I welcome this storm; appreciating my captivity.

Few things are more inviting than a warm kitchen on a cold day–especially one steeped in the redolence of savory dishes and delectable desserts baking. Today is perfect for the oven to be working full-time These past few days I have decided to take up bread baking. Each time I go to the store, I am lured by the artisan breads and appalled by the increasing costs– five and six dollars for a loaf of bread! While many find the time it takes to knead bread therapeutic, kneading is most likely what kept me away from the experience of regular bread baking. I have a mixer on loan to me inclusive of a bread hook that aids me in turning out perfect loaves each and every time. However, bread making is a unique experience, with each loaf, batch and dough having its own personality. Once upon a time, I owned a bakery. Baking did not captivate me. I suppose having a new- born, working an additional full time job and running a bakery business did not lend itself to enjoyment of the art. Now I relish being up to my elbows in flour. I have learned to fold the dough rather than punch it down, to strengthen it as the gases are being redistributed. I've learned to create a steamy environment for the bread to thrive. Perhaps the loaves are not perfectly shaped, but they are delicious and beautiful and I relish the fact, I am learning something new daily. My new practice has slowed life down.


These days, my mornings start with feeding the animals, brewing a pot of coffee, starting the fire. I absorb the predawn silence with mediation and check in with the morning news. I decide on what tasks to take on. I assemble ingredients for the day's bread or layout materials for a craft project and allow myself to be carried by whim and fancy. I am so ever grateful for this sabbatical in time.

As winter whispers hello the days pass effortlessly and chores feel joyful. The wood is piled high next to the wood stove The winds have calmed a bit and the pup and I just came in from a romp in the snow. I tried my best to distract him from the doe standing silently only an arms reach away. Lunch is in the making–a salad of tender greens–buttery spinach and the sweet of craisins and poppyseed dressing are perfect accompaniment to a juicy tender pork loin accented by luscious pear sauce. Herbed popovers with their crumbly tops and chewy centers are the baking excursion for the day. My heart and hearth prepares for the quiet of the season.

~The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call "Gitche Gumee."
"Superior," they said, "never gives up her dead
when the gales of November come early!"

autumnal awakening

October 12, 2010 and the skies are cool and grey. Early morning and I am undecided which direction to take Sitka on our daily walk. My decision is usually made by how long I feel like hiking and where would Sitka have the most freedom. There is fog obscuring the lake below and the temperature is a chilly forty-eight degrees. I decide the shelter of Chester Creek’s ravine will make the hike more pleasant and hiking the incline will have me shed my jacket in no time. Chester Creek is one of twenty-three major creek ravines in the City of Duluth. Spring fed, it rises in the area of Rice Lake and Arrowhead Roads. But it is the trail from Chester Bowl down to Fourth Street and back that I am so enamored. This 2.5-mile loop trail is somewhat steep and is considered challenging. Each and every day that we venture out is a new excursion. With the season rapidly changing the trail morphs with the constant loss of foliage. Underfoot the leaf bed thickens with rich decay. I can see the creek tumbling down the hillside from points on the trail where I could not see it just a week or so ago.

My practice today is to be part of its nature–not to think and plan but just see, feel, hear and smell the environment that envelops me. It is best to remain present to keep my footing. The roots of trees and rocks protrude making me feel klutzy as my eyes take in the lingering color of the oak and ash trees. I am surprised at discovering leaves yet green and the amount of gold when the vast majority has bared their branches save for a leaf or two. I almost always forget the path that I walk is dead center in town. The cascading water carries me away to the wilderness this was once a part.



Igneous rock sculpted by glacier and water erosion created the geographical features of the creek. The rock formations found in this general area are part of the core of the continent, The Great or Canadian Shield. This volcanic rock is more than one billion years old, some of the oldest on earth. At the top of the park is the historic shoreline of Glacial Lake Duluth. The deposits of red clay found throughout the park were lake bottom sediment, eroded silts from younger volcanic and sedimentary rock washed down by water flows from the retreating glaciers.

The White Pines at this spot are a reminder of the importance of the lumber industry in the history of Duluth. Although the original forest in and around Duluth was heavily logged at turn of the 20th century the steep creek banks prevented the removal of some mature trees so that there are specimens here that are more than 100 years old. White pine for me holds the most majesty.

My thoughts are carried to the gratitude I have for the opportunity to experience the creek as it changes with the season on a daily basis. When I was consumed with the tasks of work and housekeeping I would walk the trail as part of an exercise regime another task to complete on my excursions north. Now the trail is a daily meditation, a portal to hear more clearly the whispers of my soul. In another instant, I hear a child’s laugh carried on the breeze but I realize it is only a premonition. Without realizing it I am projecting to future walks with Halyn, Reed and Myla. I so want to share the magic and the mystery of these surroundings. I hope to travel the creeks and waterways, forests and meadows foraging for treasure as my fellow explorers fall in love with what nature has shown me.

Sitka and I reach the top of the trail just below Chester Bowl. Walking down into the ravine is the antithesis of others’ paths. I walk down with the cascading water and return hiking uphill to be rewarded by my favorite part of the creek where the talus makes the tallest drop and makes the most spectacular of the falls. I am slowly becoming more proficient at my walking meditations. I take a seat on rock where water divides and starts to tumble down. The sun has broken through and a shocking blue sky reveals itself above. In this moment I return to my senses and abandon all thought allowing the feeling to etch memories I hope to one day share.

10.10.10

10.10.10 has numerological significance to the universe, to me. October 10, 2010 has a distinctive number sequence. I woke this morning to read a numerologist account of the day’s significance. The number 10 is represented three times, and only three different digits appear: the 0, the 1 and the 2. There are also noteworthy “coincidences” among the hidden numbers. For example, the 0 and the 2 dominate what numerologists refer to as Challenges — numbers whose presence denotes obstacles and difficulties we have to overcome in order to grow and move forward. These past months I have wondered if I have just been adrift. To an extent, I have been floating downstream in my existence. Although, this is a vast improvement to the years I have struggled paddling upstream trying to control my circumstances to no avail. I kept managing the challenges, but without noticeable growth or forward movement.

My fiftieth year came along with three more. I have been postmenopausal for at least that many. My forties came and went and I survived a tumultuous, drama-filled relationship to uncover how far I was capable of losing my soul. When I could finally trust myself again, I ventured out to discover what love had in store for me and I hit the pavement, literally. I found myself flying across the country to bring home my son who was in the grips of addiction. My first grandchild arrived in the crux of drama and feelings of trepidation. At the height of exhaustion and frustration, I quit my job–retired. I think I could cash in and add to my pension if I received a five spot for every time I was told I am too young to be retired.

It is unseasonably warm this tenth day of October in northern Minnesota. I have been watching ships ease out into Lake Superior from the safety of the harbor while soaking up final rays of the sun as it drenches where I lay in the hammock. I take pride now in the amount of time I give myself to do nothing but just be. It creeps into my awareness that I have not honored the accomplishment of arriving or maybe it’s more like becoming. It isn’t so much about the chronological phases in my life, rather a shedding of an old skin or maybe I am molting. I know I have been on a journey of becoming new. The newness is being defined in each moment of each day as it unfolds. I have not been able to find the word for myself. I have been separated from the word by some internal process that has almost been too subtle to realize. It feels like I drifted through this journey unconscious. It is now almost dream like–recovering from a catastrophic accident, turning 50, moving away from being a fertile female, starting a new marriage, Halyn’s birth, my son’s recovery, ending a career. And said career was most definitely a life’s purpose. Being a teacher has always been who I am while interwoven with parenthood. And now–my purpose?

I am and will be eternally grateful for being able to wake up every morning and never go to just a job. My life has always been filled with meaning and direction. The tasks of teaching academic content, being counsel and giving sage advice on life’s perplexities, watching my student’s move out to make their marks on the world along with raising two extraordinary human beings have filled my life and my world. As I look back on it all, I am grateful that I could hear the inner wisdom whispering, “It is time to move on.” I could no longer be a sage within the box in which I had found myself confined. I was no longer able to find me in this small space with so little oxygen. There was something new underfoot. The earth rumbled. I was losing my balance. I was running out of breath.

There is much significance to the gift of time I have been given. I don’t think I have been present to this gift, until now. I don’t know if I truly understand its richness–yet. Now there are two more grandbabies. There is no doubt this gift allows me to be in this new role. A role I will need to learn how to be. I never thought of myself as anyone’s grandmother, not this soon. I must have had this role reserved up on a shelf for a much later time in my life. I am ever grateful for being present for their births, not just physically present, but emotionally in the here and now. I am like the autumnal season. The fall brings time to slow and retire and burst forth again with spring. I am blessed and fortunate enough to have at it again. I know I have it in me to hear what whispers to my soul.

Home base has been this house for twenty-four years. I am occupying the space for the first time. I have never had the fortune and the pleasure of inhabiting the entire house. I always rented out the first floor apartment. The first floor now is a studio where I can play with images and words. Even now as we share our space and our views with guests, I am able to play with the space and learn how to be in it. I have always been running somewhere, looking for something, teetering on the edge of the next big something. Remarkably, I have returned here to this house on the hill overlooking the greatest of lakes. In all I have been seeking, my final destination is finding balance. I lay in the hammock breathing in the scents of burning leaves. I watch the seagull being held by the breeze. The light is low and diffused in a warmth I have not ever experienced. In all these years, I have never spent hours reveling in October’s light on my own deck. The sun dips below the roof next door and I decide to start a fire on the patio that I built with my own hands this summer. I pour a glass of wine and I grab the computer to feel the flow of characters on the screen. I am hoping the physical act of striking the keys will unscramble these thoughts about arriving in my fifties, being early retired, becoming a grandmother all the while holding seeds of creativity waiting to be planted. It all happened without barely a notice.