It’s hard to get back into writing my novel while I am at the cottage in Michigan. Partly I am procrastinating at writing a difficult scene – but mostly I want to breathe in Michigan. 

    The air smells of nothing false. The wind shushes through the trees, a musical backdrop; no other sounds, nothing but nature. Birds chime in with chirps and cheeps and sounds without names. One is a dolorous bell chiming. The owl that lives in the woods nearby? 

     Into this nature wonderland has just come a FedEx truck rumbling by heading to the cottage up the hill. This causes the dog to bark. But this is a minor incursion – just enough to remind me how I dislike the sound of truck engines, and the driver cursing at someone on his phone.

    Maybe this truck driver will come to the end of his day and take time to go down to the little lake, Portage, stretch out on the beach and watch the fishing boats; or trek over to the Big Lake –Michigan, with its vast blue expanse, whitecaps fringing waves that go far beyond what we can see. And that immense Michigan sky that stages light shows – clouds of all shapes and colors – blazing white to dark blue rain clouds, lightning thunderbolting through the sky. Sunsets of reds and oranges, purples that paint the clouds into magical cities in the sky. 

    Then the night sky. Away from the city, over the lake, millions of diamond stars. The Milky Way, Orion’s Belt. 

    People are kind here – in this shared natural wonderland. Nobody, for now, talking about the elephant outside this magic bubble.

    Better get down to writing. Uh-oh, another intrusion, a lawnmower buzzing nearby. I can tolerate this – it is just one, and the mowing is nearly finished. Not like the squadron of mowers and hedge trimmers I hear at home in the city. Disrupting all sense of peace and quiet.

    There is respect for quiet here. Enough quiet to hear the shush shush of the wind in the trees and the waves on the lakes. Enough, I should think, to finish at least one chapter. Blast it, mower coming back around. Why do people mow lawns. Have lawns? Let nature be, I say. Let us be.

    Ah, mower shut down. Sweet smell of pure North Michigan.

    Even on the lakes, there is quietude. Most boats are powered by wind. Some smaller motorboats. Few of  those hyper-noisemakers, jet skis. The sleepy fishing boats use put-put motors whose sounds are almost comforting, the way the sounds of a baseball game on the radio are. 

    Yes, I well know the outside world is full of woe. Oh so much woe. I do not know how it will end. Who will win and who will lose. If we will be plunged into a Dark Time from which we cannot extricate ourselves. Or a time of more light. Yet in this land beyond cities, beyond beyond, for this slice of time – I know not how much longer – we live in paradise.

    I believe I am ready to tackle that difficult scene now.