The Big Lake
A second day, family vacation close to Coloma Michigan. St. Joseph is just a fifteen minute drive south, a famed small town enjoyed by generations. The view from the bluff of Silver Beach is spectacular. There is a very large circular concrete splash pad with timed water jets for toddlers, and older children to enjoy under supervision by parents. Silver Beach Pizza is there too. It’s an Amtrack Station turned Pizza parlor. The pizza ranks with the best I’ve tasted.
Today will be spent for the most part at the edge of the lake. This year there is unusually broad and long sandy beach. The beach varies year to year, according to how the storms moved the sand around. I’ll enjoy watching grandkids (3) swim and engineer sandcastles, Laura and I will go for long walks. As usual we will collect sand polished pebbles of interesting shades and patterns, and sometimes small bones, relics of gulls, or fish or… The lake and surrounding woods are alive, life, mostly unseen, layered, microscopic, vegetative, (black eyed susan wildflowers), avian, mammalian, is everywhere. Homo sapiens vacationers, here for a few days, ought not think any of this “belongs” to their species, is anything other than a short-term habitation…
I read these words from a email newsletter subscription received from Amanda Yates Gracia. She captures something true, foundational about our tenure here.
Remember, everything in your life that you now love was put there by someone, cared for by someone, tended to by many someones over eons. Humans, animals, plants, elemental beings, all, since the beginning of time, co-created the beauty we now enjoy. The world has been under threat many times before, and it is because of the care of our collective ancestors that life still exists on this planet. And you, we, are now the custodians of this beauty.
I bought four books with me to Michigan. Two are translations of Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching. One is by Stephen Mitchell and the other, a more philosophical treatment by Roger T. Ames and David J. Hall. I’ll take one with me down to the beach.
