completion

Time is a curious sense of reality. Minutes, hours, even days, can feel like an eternity. Yet weeks, months, and years fly by. I can hardly believe that I have come to the end of this 19 day mini-sabbatical. Tomorrow I pack up and leave this little cottage. I will miss my mornings watching the sun rise over the water and the busy birds and rabbits as gather. Fall is in the air because the blackbirds are here, part of their twice yearly migration. They amaze me, so many all at once. The squirrels and rabbits are not pleased to have to share this space with them.

The water quality here has been tricky. Every day the algae bloom drifts in and then drifts out. Some days it gets stuck in this corner of the lake, getting thicker as the current and wind piles on more and more. Then, within hours, it all drifts away. Usually it floats under the road and to the other side. Sometimes it floats down to the other side of this inlet lake. The algae bloom is disgustingly dirty, bits of trash stuck in it, and it smells like over ripe vegetation. I am always grateful when it drifts away. Even then the water is full of algae, apparent when kayaking and I can see the algae under the surface. Lake Erie is definitely not my favorite of the Great Lakes. BUT, despite that, this has been a fabulous spot for watching birds and water fowl. Herons, egrets, Night Herons, gulls of all sorts, cormorants, and ducks of all varieties have amused me and fascinated me.

In these 18 days we managed to kayak three times. There were other opportunities when the water was free of scum and I could have gone out, but I was not comfortable getting into the kayak off of this unstable pier and with this poor water quality, on my own. I definitely wanted Dan here as backup in case something happened. He had to work most of the time I was here, so we went out every time he was able to come down. By yesterday I had figured out how to enter the boat and more impressively, how to exit the boat. The boat sits about 2 feet below the pier and I have to lift myself up from the boat onto the pier from the side. It was a difficult maneuver requiring a strength I do not have. But yesterday I managed to get myself out of the cockpit and sitting on the back of the boat, then lift myself out onto the pier. That was easy peasy. The boat was tied to the pier so it was less inclined to rock and tip. The water at the pier is not shallow enough to stand in, completely murky, but I know that it is also very rocky, so falling in was not something I wanted to do. If I could see below the surface I might have been less concerned about tipping. Still, this has been a good opportunity to practice kayaking. I definitely need to work on my rowing, I feel clumsy, and at times I feel like my boat is too big, like I am moving a tank through the water. In September I am going to test a different boat and see if it feels better. This one will be lighter and a little more shallow, but about as wide - so it should feel stable in the water but be easier to move. It is also a lot more expensive....but we’ll see.

One of my goals for the mini-sabbatical was to learn about icons and to practice writing them (while one paints an icon, the process is called “writing” an icon, which honors that it is a form of expressive prayer, the words being formed in color and image). I wrote three icons. Two of them were the same image of the Pontecrator, Jesus holding the book of Gospels and blessing the world (or some say, judging the world). The other was of Theotokos, of Mary the mother of Jesus, holding the toddler Jesus. I wanted an image of her without the veil, her hair long and free. I found one that I could work off of. Now I hope to take an icon writing class one of these days and learn from others so I can continue this practice.

The other thing I worked on while here was a jigsaw puzzle. Last summer I bought a puzzle of Monet’s painting of lily pads in water. I had planned to work on it during vacation last year, but we never got around to it. So I pulled it out here and worked on it. Oh wow wow wow was it difficult. So many pieces that looked exactly the same. I could spend hours on it and only place a couple of pieces. I had to develop a strategy for organizing the pieces so that I could see them and make sense of them. Dan and I spent most of Tuesday working on it and made some great headway. I finished it last night. I was prepared to just pull it apart and go home without completing it. However finishing it leaves me with a sense of completion, of satisfaction. I have met my objectives for this sabbatical time: rest, renewal, kayaking, bird watching, mornings looking out over water and sunrise, painting, using the other side of my brain. I also had fun family time and some quality time with Dan as we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary.

I’m not really ready to go home, to go back to work. But I am going back rested, having accomplished what I hoped to accomplish in this little bit of time off. I am grateful for this opportunity and feel very blessed.