The first day of a long weekend by Lake Michigan.  The sun slowly illuminates the forest that is quite close to the patio, the tall dark trees flame with green light.  The curtain goes up on another day.  Do you suppose that for the living vegetation, birds, mammals that live invisibly to us — that each dawn is the first day of creation?  Would they have a sense of the past,  historical consciousness, an idea of the passage of time, the erosion which change brings?  I prefer to assume they do not.  I am not certain that the wisdom that comes with age is a blessing…. 

In any case the birds are making a great hullabaloo, singing with gusto, singing loudly in considerable numbers.  This close to the lake and the forest, there are enough birds to form a choir,  —  more than I am accustomed to hearing in the suburb where we live. 

Always I feel a tremor of mystery when I view the extent of a large body of water.  I always feel this mysterium tremendum, the awe inspiring mystery whenever I catch glimpse of the ocean.  This happens when I visit Lake Michigan too.  Yesterday, soon after we arrived at our accommodation we  made the short walk to the side of the lake.  The lake was booming, waves that rolled toward the sandy beach, finally crashing in a rush of sand and water.  Several photographs illustrate the sensation of standing before a vast body of water, which is expending it’s energy in serried ranks of waves, an endless beat and retreat upon the sandy beach.  So, it is with every large body of water, every lake and ocean anywhere around the world.  It is as if Nature, the complex of energy exchange, the raw cause and effect of things, can be felt as a pulse when one stands barefooted on a sandy beach.

To be there with our grand children was to be reminded of the pure joy of play that I had when growing up, on a sandy beach and water to swim in.  I remember being tumbled over and over by the wave action of the Atlantic ocean.  After a few more years becoming a stronger swimmer, never forgetting that I had to take care, that the water was not my friend, — I never let enjoyment efface my awareness that the stakes could not be greater.  There is no room for accident, for going beyond one’s capabilities when venturing into deeper water.

Viewing the sweep of the shoreline, the wave smoothed sand, I remember an exchange between my father and I on such  smooth stretch of sand.  I must have been fourteen or fifteen years old.  Dad challenged me to a foot race down the stretch of sand to where my mother was seated under the umbrella.  Close to the end of our dash, I slowed allowing dad to win.  He seemed particularly satisfied to have won the contest.  I never mentioned that I collaborated with his victory.

The motion of the waves, energy expended upon the matter of rock and sand produce the great piles of fine sand that is covered with humus, vegetation, and the larger trees.  Underlying the forest close to the sandy beach is a repository of many ages of the lake’s work.  Storm caused erosion of the lake front has exposed the layers of sand underlying the forest.  There is something at work here that dwarfs our projects, that renders farcical the rages and petty lies of our politicians.

There is beauty in the pebbles polished smooth by waves.  The black-eyed susan blooms quite close to the water, on the steep bank ascending to the forest, capture the eye and bring a smile.