Harry Chapin wrote a song entiltled: “Anywhere Is a Better Place To Be.” In many phases of my life I felt that way, like all humans, I was always looking for greener grass on the other side of the fence. I hoped that someday, I would find a place to live that I wouldn’t want to leave, well, a place that had it all---a place that I had no reason to leave. I thought I found it when we bought this place up here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Our place is right at the top of Lake Michigan in fact.
We are blessed with incredible sunrises and sunsets and we see the weather come and go and kick up waves that you can surf on and it pushes the salmon in and I can walk into the woods from my back door and see the eagles fly and the seagulls bellow and we watch the commercial fishermen right in front of my beach haul in tons of fish.
Yeah, I thought I’d found it all and seen it all. However, I realized it isn’t perfect at all, it isn’t at all what I wanted. No, you see, it can’t suit my needs. I have to be able to go to the river on my way home from work and cast for egg-sucking rainbows. I have to be able to fire up the boat and troll out in front of my house and catch silvery salmon. This is not enough, well, yes, of course each day is fulfilling and beautiful. It is, even when I have to drive to work in the early morning hours---I cannot get over how beautiful the drive is in the fall—when the golden/red leaves are falling and occasionally it snows a bit—but then melts. I can’t believe how green it is when I drive to work in the summer---the evergreens and the green deciduous trees---blasting you with fresh oxygen and wavy undulations of leaves delighting on the wind.
The problem is, I only have one lifetime in which to enjoy and experience and smell and taste and see this place. I cannot walk out onto my beach enough. I cannot light enough beach fires. I cannot catch enough brook and rainbow trout and salmon. I delight in the experience of not wanting to go anywhere. I don’t want to get on an airplane and see the world. I don’t want to go fishing anywhere else. I don’t want to do anything but be here, just experience here, see here, breath here, sleep here.
A 20 year-old would be squirming by now---how could anyone want to stay in a place where you can’t buy drywall screws on a Saturday? Why would you want to live in a place where you have to order special supplies and lumber days to
weeks in advance. You can’t just drive to Lowes in the middle of the day and get that last piece of corner-round molding you need---you have to stop when you run out and go to the next project and think about replenishing the other supplies next week. If you run out of butter at 7 p.m.---you have to do without, there’s nowhere to go unless you want to drive a half hour or two. It’s insane that anybody would want to live here. Witness winter---70 mph winds blowing over the ice and knocking down trees around your house and making it exceedingly difficult just to get in. Sometimes you have to shovel four times a day---even then the drifts still get the best of you. Why? Well, if it isn’t obvious, I guess I have to spell it out.
I don’t have light pollution. I can see the stars and the planets when they appear. I don’t have noise pollution---in fact, I can’t hear anything but the wind most of the time. I don’t have neighbor pollution. My nearest neighbor is about ¼ mile away---and she likes being by herself too. Well, most of the time she’s traveling and visiting children anyway. I can walk into my front yard in my underwear and pee in the grass and not give a shit about the neighbor next door.
I can live a lifetime of one----but, I cannot live enough lifetimes in one to get enough of living on the frontier…I am
living on the edge of the greatest fresh water lake in the world and waking up and in and experiencing Paradise.
I know there is a God in Heaven. I know he created me. I love Him, I am pretty
sure He loves me. I hope he loves me enough that when I pass on, He will create for me a Naubinway Nook. I hope that I will find my swing in my front yard looking at the Lake. I hope that I will see my boat next to the garage, ready to go, ready to fish. I hope I will still have my big garage---with all the tools in the tool crib ready to go and Northern Exposure on and a couple of guitars ready to play.
I hope that I will find you there, sitting in a chair, ready to talk, bond, and take it all in with me. Because this, well, this is a much better place to be….
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Way tooooooo Longgggg....!!!!!!
I can't believe I haven't written on my BLOG in such a long, long time. Recently, many friends have criticized me for not writing. Thus, I will try to catch up and explain. Basically, I have been so busy living life in the U.P. to the fullest that I haven't had time to write. Between going to football games to watch my son catch his average of 1.5 touchdowns a game and play a stunningly good defensive end position---and then going to work of course----and then catching a few salmon out in front of the house from the boat---and home remodeling----and keeping in touch with my daughters----one in Cinci and one at Interlochen----and then finding time to nurture my relationship with my wife---SHEESH---it gets away from you. So, I resolve to get back into doing some writing.
There is a song by the Canadian Group "Great Big Sea" that I can't stop thinking about. Well, I can't even remember the title, but I do remember this line:
"I got problems and problems and problems and problems and I couldn't get to sleep last night....Laid awake for hours and hours and hours and I couldn't get out of the fight".
Well, it's something like that, anyway. It's amazing at how many days and hours a 51 year old man spends problem fixing. There is the patient population problem fixing---the aging cars we own problem fixing---the daughters away at school problem fixing----the son at home problem fixing---and of course the wife carrying the groceries and me having to go out and help here and wife problem fixing. My favorite T-shirt has this summed up on the front:
"Dad is the name, fixing is the game."
So, I fix things. I lay down tile floors in new additions. I tell my daughter where to go for her physical therapy. I set up physical therapy for my wife's aching shoulder. I keep the first aid kit fresh for the football team. I play music for the "Walk For Diabetes" event. I help my Chamber of Commerce with thier float for the October Fest Parade. I can go on and on and on about how involved I am at Church and in the Community and with my family. That's just what we do, we have to give back. There are so many of my friends who give back so much more than I. I can't tell you how much I admire my friend Ed for helping wounded veterans for example thru the "Healing Waters" Program. However, I have to answer my critics in summing up my life in the U.P.
I know many have said that once my life gets settled here with work and family and Church, etc., that enjoying the outdoors would become a thing of the past. That fishing would slowly become extinct. Such as it is with any move and living anywhere. When we lived in Florida, we used to go to beach every week for a year or so, then, it became a rare event---sadly. HOWEVER, you will be pleased to know that I have fished on almost a weekly basis as the weather allows. On Lake Millicoquins I catch pike, out in front, I catch salmon. I will continute to expand my fishing horizons even if weeks go by without a fish. I will continue to enjoy life despite the problems and problems and problems that we all have to face. Otherwise, we are just the walking dead, the zombie, the purposeless one.
As the leaves become orange and yellow and red and are conrasted against the evergreens, and the salmon start to run up river....I have changed over from brook trout fishing and blueberry picking to enjoying the cool air and ever changing skylines. Wow, that's an understatement---the wind and rain and sun and clouds change in minutes up here----but you can see it coming and happening off in the distance in 360 degrees---unencumbered by buildings and sky scrapers. You can't hear trains or cars or trucks, you can only hear the wind in the pines and you take in so many stars in the sky it is humbling.
I hope you find your day to be as good. I pray that you too can continue to live life month by month without a single thought or feeling of depression. That you can find your Creator in any form that He comes best to you as. Maybe as an "Aunt Jemina" form in the book "The Shack," Wow, what a great book---or maybe He or She comes to you in the endless stars above that I see as I lay on my dock. And isn't it great when He gives you the gift of a perfect day out front catching silvery, hard fighting salmon. I always say a thank you to God when that happens...what a great feeling. What a great feeling that you asked for this humble problem fixer to write some more!!!! Have a great DAY!!!! Always,
Jeff
There is a song by the Canadian Group "Great Big Sea" that I can't stop thinking about. Well, I can't even remember the title, but I do remember this line:
"I got problems and problems and problems and problems and I couldn't get to sleep last night....Laid awake for hours and hours and hours and I couldn't get out of the fight".
Well, it's something like that, anyway. It's amazing at how many days and hours a 51 year old man spends problem fixing. There is the patient population problem fixing---the aging cars we own problem fixing---the daughters away at school problem fixing----the son at home problem fixing---and of course the wife carrying the groceries and me having to go out and help here and wife problem fixing. My favorite T-shirt has this summed up on the front:
"Dad is the name, fixing is the game."
So, I fix things. I lay down tile floors in new additions. I tell my daughter where to go for her physical therapy. I set up physical therapy for my wife's aching shoulder. I keep the first aid kit fresh for the football team. I play music for the "Walk For Diabetes" event. I help my Chamber of Commerce with thier float for the October Fest Parade. I can go on and on and on about how involved I am at Church and in the Community and with my family. That's just what we do, we have to give back. There are so many of my friends who give back so much more than I. I can't tell you how much I admire my friend Ed for helping wounded veterans for example thru the "Healing Waters" Program. However, I have to answer my critics in summing up my life in the U.P.
I know many have said that once my life gets settled here with work and family and Church, etc., that enjoying the outdoors would become a thing of the past. That fishing would slowly become extinct. Such as it is with any move and living anywhere. When we lived in Florida, we used to go to beach every week for a year or so, then, it became a rare event---sadly. HOWEVER, you will be pleased to know that I have fished on almost a weekly basis as the weather allows. On Lake Millicoquins I catch pike, out in front, I catch salmon. I will continute to expand my fishing horizons even if weeks go by without a fish. I will continue to enjoy life despite the problems and problems and problems that we all have to face. Otherwise, we are just the walking dead, the zombie, the purposeless one.
As the leaves become orange and yellow and red and are conrasted against the evergreens, and the salmon start to run up river....I have changed over from brook trout fishing and blueberry picking to enjoying the cool air and ever changing skylines. Wow, that's an understatement---the wind and rain and sun and clouds change in minutes up here----but you can see it coming and happening off in the distance in 360 degrees---unencumbered by buildings and sky scrapers. You can't hear trains or cars or trucks, you can only hear the wind in the pines and you take in so many stars in the sky it is humbling.
I hope you find your day to be as good. I pray that you too can continue to live life month by month without a single thought or feeling of depression. That you can find your Creator in any form that He comes best to you as. Maybe as an "Aunt Jemina" form in the book "The Shack," Wow, what a great book---or maybe He or She comes to you in the endless stars above that I see as I lay on my dock. And isn't it great when He gives you the gift of a perfect day out front catching silvery, hard fighting salmon. I always say a thank you to God when that happens...what a great feeling. What a great feeling that you asked for this humble problem fixer to write some more!!!! Have a great DAY!!!! Always,
Jeff
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