Excuses Minnesota Child Uses to Get Out of Swim Lessons While Going Through Her Fear-of-Water-and-Obsessed-with-Dying-Before-She’s-Ready Phase
by Ash Goedker
Last time you said there’s cabins north
nowhere near water or
heaven, or me –
Ever hear of the Boundary Waters
Lake of the Woods
Lake Winnibigoshish
Child Lake Lake Watch Me Do a Flip
You Can’t Make Me Lake
Lake Looks Like a Lady
Grave Lake Holy Name Lake
Ice Cracking Lake Big
Too Much Lake
Lake of Fire
Like My Back Door?
I’m still training
in the Lord’s Army,
and if I drown
out,
You won’t
get a postcard –
not from me.
I have been on vacation this week, camping 5 nights in a tent several places in Northern Minnesota, spending three of those nights on the shores of Lake Superior north of Grand Marais, Minnesota. Lake Superior is an inland fresh water sea, an ocean of fresh water, that is almost too mystical to imagine if you haven’t been there. It is different from the ocean in that the water is soft and clear and cold. Lake Superior is a rocky, largely undeveloped shore line that remains not disimilar to what it looked like one hundred years ago. My grandfather helped build the original highway from Duluth to the Canadian border in the 1920s. The boundary between Canada and the United States from Grand Portage to the Northwest Angle was the last portion of the boundary to be surveyed by both countries and wasn’t completed until the 1920’s as well. We camped 20 miles from the Canadian border right on the lakeshore on a portion of the Lake Superior Hiking Trail. We largely had the place to ourselves. We had brought our kayaks and kayaked on the lake during calm waters, finding rocks and shore line agates in the water, using the kayak to scout drift wood and find treasures.
There is nothing like a tent camping vacation. We back packed into a campsite for two days, reminding us how heavy even the most modest of conveniences and necessities are and the need to upgrade some of our equipment for future back country experiences. It was also a reminder of how little you really need on a vacation when the focus is on quiet and wilderness. I am blessed to have an adventurous partner who is not intimidated by biting insects, sleeping on the ground and uninvited leeches during our daily swims. It is a peaceful lifestyle to wake up in the morning, decide on what to do and go out into nature and experience it. Do you have a favorite camping destination? How do you like to camp?
Dear Friends
by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Dear friends, reproach me not for what I do,
Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say
That I am wearing half my life away
For bubble-work that only fools pursue.
And if my bubbles be too small for you,
Blow bigger then your own: the games we play
To fill the frittered minutes of a day,
Good glasses are to read the spirit through.
And whoso reads may get him some shrewd skill;
And some improfitable scorn resign,
To praise the very thing that he deplores.
So, friends (dear friends), remember, if you will,
The shame I win for singing is all mine,
The gold I miss for dreaming is all yours.
Fourteen Lines 