Plague Journal, Saying Goodby
Every ending is a beginning. Time to depart, to say goodby to the house where we stayed, and to Lake Michigan. We have good memories of the past five days. There has been lots of laughter and some funny stories were told. I am satisfied to know the children will remember this time for the rest of their lives. Do we not all need good memories, a look-back that fills us with happiness, that we swam, that we ate chocolate and marshmello s’mores around a fire, the good food that we ate, and a few tasty cocktails, etc…. We do.
I will miss the lake. Lake Michigan, one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, is life-like in movement, the changing shoreline, a boundary between a great volume of water and the lake houses close at hand, not so far from the beach. Strange as it sounds, while walking the beach I felt in the presence of a god. That is, — in the midst of something that I could never understand, that I could only acknowledge. For a while we have been part of something more durable and more profound than ourselves.
So we return to our lives. We leave behind for now, the solitude of the great lake, and the enjoyment of being together for another family vacation. We return to the day to day chores, the work-that-must-be-done, to the incessant drumbeat of marketing that is our late capitalist society, the daily news reports of the pandemic and of the social unrest in our country, the incipient violence… All must be accepted. This is the life that we have.
Here are photos that I captured on the last full day which was spent at the lake. The last image in the series, a magnificent shot of the sunset was taken by someone else in our party.
One thought on “Plague Journal, Saying Goodby”
Daughter and family live in St.Joseph, MI…and the scenery there seems to invite her to take many pictures. When they first moved from the IL side of the lake, she found a much slower pace of life….now she appreciates it.