Babies Practice

24 August, Day Five

Chippewa Harbor

I sit on the rocky shore at the west end of Chippewa Harbor, about 700 feet north of the Lake Whitlessey portage. There is breeze up the harbor from the east, but it is warm enough to swim. Sun and clouds play back and forth. This moment is not bright, a blessing to my eyes. I’ve had a leisurely morning of camp chores: hand wash, picking thimbleberries for pancakes, dumping chlorinated Rock Harbor water from my second bag and pumping fresh into both. I rinsed sprouts and put quiona to soak.

These are long days of aloneness, a monk’s existence with time for attention to each detail. Sometimes the freedom to choose weighs heavily. In those moments I choose nothing, to sit, or to write. These are the sounds: a raven caw makes the most noise; wind rustles aspen leaves and pours down rock; gentle waves lap on shore. A gust of wind brings more trees into play. There is an airplane high overhead; a rare human-origin sound.

(Later) Meditating on the shore of Lake Whitlessey, my eyes closed against the bright sun on the water, I hear a sound to which my mind can assign no meaning. A distant aluminum canoe dragged across plastic? I can’t resist temptation to open my eyes and scan the lake to my right, expecting to see a paddling party. No humans, but 50-feet in front of me a mama loon swims beside two fluffy gray young ones. That ineffective high scraping sound is the babies working on their call. Mom blurts out an occasional clarion call to remind them how it goes.