I just got back from sailing on Lake Superior in wilderness areas, mostly without cell service. Before we left, Cecil and I decided not to look at news for the entire two weeks. No Flipboard, no Slate, no Guardian, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram—none of the usual ways we get information (and lots of stress). And it was damn blissful.
Instead of asking each other at dinner—”OMG can you believe what that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named just did?” we talked about the water—how it looks when wind hits and the water looks crosshatched some times and rippled other times. Or where sea smoke (wispy fog that hangs above the water) comes from. The angle of waves. How it’s both scary and wonderful to get stuck in a thunderstorm on a boat. We discussed how—when we’re away from home—we don’t miss 99% of our possessions. We laughed at the dog discovering her echo.
And then we arrived back home to two shooting massacres and the news that Toni Morrison died. At first I wanted to climb back into the car and drive to the boat again. Stare at the water and fog and ignore everything that’s happening. But it’s too serious. And avoidance has never been a good strategy. So time to dig in.
Anchored off Suzy Island, near the Canadian border