Comfort For the Too Close
Oct 24th, 2009 by Marilyn
I will not miss summer, not frizzy hair and heat for one minute – but every leaf fell today, dragon-red streamers in a parade of pouring rain. It was lovely, and made me want to spin each leaf on its stem, examine every brown lace vein and dry serrated edge. Still, it took walking in the park with Cleo – her favorite paw season, damp and crunchy – to see the big picture: one leaf is special, but a thousand leaves are Autumn.
This is not new to me, missing the view, especially in the kitchen. Mostly I see cookies through a camera, or sauce on the back of a spoon. I whip meringue peering into a mixer by the second, watching for the right curve to appear on the right shiny peak. Details follow me out of the kitchen, too, as they did last summer when we tripped up to the North Woods for our annual beloved cooling-off. I brought my camera and also an unfortunate new habit, the blogger’s eye, which I turned first on breakfast.
We love to start the day in Lutsen Resort’s rustic dining room. There’s a hearty breakfast buffet, no tepid Sunday brunch but a much-loved, locally fresh, rush-the-table buffet. Now, we are people who drink coffee – for breakfast. We like to eat properly on Sunday, but nothing in our daily routine suggests even toast, let alone heaped plates of cheddar and wild rice eggs, smoked sausage, buttermilk biscuits and peppered rivers of gravy. And because you’re breathing brisk pine air and are certain you’ll hike it off, how about those pastries? Lemon custard squares, cinnamon bear claws, airy chocolate croissants. Wild blueberry danish.
It’s all tremendous – the glittering lake, fresh-baked danish, healthy air and caution to the wind. Feeling good, and a camera near the fork. Why not some pictures for the blog?
So I snapped away while they ate, aiming for special breakfast sunlight on special danish glaze. When Josie saw the pictures she said “Too much close-up or something.”
Too close? “I don’t know, the bacon. You made bacon look…gross?” She was right. How did the smokiest bacon lose its looks? What’s with that blueberry? I backed the lens off the breakfast.
Out by the lake I tried pondering the horizon but wound up sifting tiny rocks, lake treasure. Cold waves rushed my feet and I tumbled sandy jasper, granite and maybe-agates through my hands. I brought the camera.
Further down the shore Greg and Josie were skipping rocks, the same rocks. Like shell seekers, the three of us like to wander the lake beach, sometimes separate, sometimes in all directions, somehow together. This time I sat in the sand, and told them I’d catch up.
I played with my camera, closer and closer to the rocks, mesmerized by green stripes and egg shapes and fossil dings.
Just around the time I found the zoom could capture jean fibers, I looked over, and up.
My husband loves to skip rocks. Lake Superior rock-skipping is art and sport, a thousand smooth chances to both relax and get it right. For a man who uses his brain all day – or perhaps precisely because of it – Greg is surprisingly devoted to throwing rocks into water. He’s as good at this no-brainer as it is good for him, nothing but bounces over waves. “Five,” he’ll say, “did you see that? Five.”
Josie’s been working at it for years too, with each summer using longer arms to best the master. When I looked up from my rocks that day, I saw this:
If I were still sifting rocks I’d have missed it, and if I’d followed them, I’d be in it.
We frequently wish to be where we’re not, always why am I here and should have been there, but for a few minutes in July I was right where I was supposed to be, wet feet and sandy rolled jeans, windy hair and heart bouncing down the shore, seeing what we’ve wrought and for once saying yes, here and now. Oh, yes to the wide view.
This belongs in a novel. Are you working on one? I hope so. Every word is perfect.
this…I adore.;))
Wonderful view, wonderful story.
Just… perfect. Those pictures of the two of them made me cry. I hope they’re hanging in his office.
This is a beautiful post, Marilyn. You are such a gifted writer. I am (selfishly) hoping for a cookbook! Or a novel. Or both. A novel with recipes? A novel about a pastry chef who loves and bakes…
Sometimes I get lost in your words for a moment, wrapped in a blanket of comfort. Such a nice respite from my daily routine. This story is one of those times….Thank you.
Your way with words is breathtakingly beautiful.
Ahhh! Thanks so much for a trip down memory lane. Although we live in Southern California, we have made several trips to the North Shore and our parents stayed at the Lutsen Resort once while we camped on Sawbill Lake. I loved Lutsen’s wild rice soup. Your pictures have made me hope that this next summer we will head back up that way, where all is calm and elemental.
I loved reading your word picture. You artfully piece together a word picture for us to see, and though we see through your words, we see the rest through your photos. Thanks for sharing special moments.
AmyRuth
Lovely, my dear. Lovely. I second the notion of a novel…
Spent a brief time on the Lake Michigan beach this summer with my daughter and my cousin, the hibachi chef of beach days (she has all the equipment in the trunk at all times). Your post captured the rightness of beach time.
Liked the bacon picture, as well.
Glad Greg made it into the picture:) A photo-illustrated novel – now there’s a thought. As always your story is compelling and unique, and I love the change of pace to B&W.
Yay! That’s all I wanted to say. Well, that and please put that photo series in a super mega little special book for Josie.
Fabulous. Really.
Oh my – does that make we who comment here blogger’s eye enablers? I sense a 12 step group in the offing. People who love people who blog too much. Or something like that.
I won’t argue with your daughter (mostly because I know a futile cause when I read one) but I’ll agree with Meg, that bacon looks tasty to me. AND I love the contrast between the tiny colorful rock and your jeans threads.
All that said – the photo sequence of the rock skipping is perfection. Oh yes indeed. Yes to your blogging eye and another catch in the throat Yes! to your wide view, Marilyn. Yes, yes yes.
Coming up for air… just for a moment… to take in the wide view and say thanks for the lovely post, Marilyn.
I once read the following by Tom Stoppard:
“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”
Your final paragraph is proof of Stoppard’s observation.
I sure do like that notion of nudging the world a little.
take care,
muddy
I just love the words you write. I am so late, but so happy to have found such a special blog. Thanks for the smile.
Rhonda