Wake to the alarm at 6:00am. Make coffee. Exercise to “Body Electric” at 6:30am. Make the bed. Shower. Shave. Dress. Get Jack ready for school. Drive Jack to school. Get my ass to work. Deal with children in need of protection or services. Eat lunch at my desk. Set the alarm clock. Take a nap at my desk. Wake to the alarm. Deal with criminals. Drive home. Toss the baseball with Jack (still in my dress clothes, my tie flapping as I throw the ball). Change into casual clothes. Drive Jack to Boy Scouts. Take a trip to Office Max to pick up paper for the printer. Drive back to Boy Scouts. Chat with some other dads. Pick Jack up. Drive home. Try to get Jack to help carry the canoes down to the racks next to the river. Fail at that. Portage all three canoes (including the 18′ Grumman square stern) by myself. Feel my low back, where the fusion holds things together, cry out in protest.
And then the best part of my day happens.
The gloaming: that time of dusk or twilight when the sun settles below the ridges and trees along the river to the west, and the light begins to fade over the silver black water. I sit on steep wooden stairs leading to the Cloquet River. Mallards quack and fly against blue turning black. A pair of wood ducks races towards the Island Lake dam. A buck snorts across the hollow across the river. Daisey (our black lab mix) ambles down the stairs on arthritic hips and sits with me as the sun descends. The dog is needy. Her warm nose nuzzles my calloused hand for attention. I scratch her ears. She yawns, leaps an old dog’s leap from stairs onto the riverbank and slurps cold water with greedy delight. I hear no Canada geese bugling overhead. I hear no ruffed grouse drumming in the forest surrounding my place of contemplation. I hear only the occasional lament of a lone male mallard in search of love and the whine of tires against asphalt as cars and trucks speed over the bridge upstream from my sanctuary.
“Look,” I say to Jack, who’s now standing on the broad back lawn of our place.
Jack’s view of what I see to the east is blocked by trees. He moves. He still can’t see the miracle. He walks towards me.
“What is it?”
I simply point.
He walks a bit more. His eyes scan the treetops marking the edge of our field.
“Wow. I thought tomorrow was the full moon.”
Big, yellow and pockmarked, a nearly complete moon stands just above the crowns of a line of mature Norway pines.
Later, Jack and I take a hot tub under the yellow glow of Earth’s only natural satellite and talk about our day and what tomorrow will bring.
There is quiet in the valley as we close the cover to the spa and head into the house.
Peace.
Mark
In the early morning hours when I was writing this piece, I forgot about the frogs! They were out at my house as well, though not audible down by the river. Still, I should have included them…
Thanks for reading.
Mark