And here we go…
I’m not a short story writer who can plop down and begin, I have to think, ponder, sweat, procrastinate, walk the dog, play with said dog, practice piano and THEN maybe grab some food watch TV before settling in to write. I guess stream of conscious is my writing style, and I can get pretty dark, like Sylvia Plath and Edgar Allen Poe, ooh and Emily Dickenson dark.
I’ve taught English and Poetry, I’ve written poetry and music even but for some reason putting ideas down in a logical and systematic way is illusive. From this point I could ramble on to anything and indeed I do mean anything — must be the ADHD — oo look butterfly!
I live in the northern part of Michigan, the Upper Peninsula as it’s called, next door to Lake Superior and Canada where we live in an area of unparalled beauty, lakes, rivers, trees whole forests, and colossal snows, fishing and hunting are high on the list too — of course the people who live here though are a tad cliquey one might say even ugly towards tourists and even themselves — descendants of miners and foresters from Scandinavia and other parts of Europe they hold a chip on their shoulder about life, how its treated them, and how you (tourist) aren’t the right kind and an enemy to our way of life, buy our stuff and leave. Its worse as towns will not work with each other or even consider making a place more tourist friendly — no it hasn’t changed, and it wont change, these people are stuck in 3rd gear and aren’t moving, we teach our kids to be as curmudgeonly as we are to ensure our history, etc. You can applaud the rugged individualism but the folks of this region do take it to an extreme.
The scene this morning outside my window is of a snow covered field and at the edge of that clearing teh forest begins, pine and other softwood trees, a few apple trees and the deer — they are like mosquitoes — but the hoofed rats are around, eating at bird feeders, various mosses and bark — its kinda Norman Rockwell — which is odd for us, not the view just that its January and I can still see outside my window usually my shepherd’s crook pole I place my bird feeder on is buried — but 2020 has bene an odd year, and perhaps surreal is a better word — folks in their 80’s and 90’s have time and again said this is something they don’t remember happening in their lifetimes.
There it is, keepski upski the good work comrade