A fine day out

For all the fine reasoning behind sealing oneself off, living the life of a reading and writing hermit, there remains the need of human contact.

As I've mentioned before, I've long admired Thomas Merton, the literature major turned silent monk. You can read about him here: http://www.merton.org/chrono.htm.

And what the quiet and silence monastery brought Merton, he still needed the human contact of his brother monks and, as his fame grew, of those visitors who sought ought his wisdom.

Needless to say, no one's seeking out my wisdom -- unless it's 1970s TV trivia, and no one's done that yet. Nonetheless, I needed a fine day out.

But despite breakfast, my day out tended more toward more silence, unless you count the knock of the red-headed woodpecker, the scattering of the gray squirrel. They were my best friends for the day.

I hiked for some time at Indiana Dunes State Park and, as I do every time, wondered why I don't hike there more often. Not just every week but how many times a week. The state park and the National park serve as a cathedral to nature. I've lived in many places, and not seen any, at least yet, where I can stand 200 hundred feet above sea level, look in one direction and see nothing but blue-green water, turn 180 degrees and see nothing but arboreal forest for thousands of acres. And all of this vista is carpeted by the finest of sands.

Remarkable.

County your blessing, my local friends. (But you're only allowed to count them if you live them.)

I also visited the new lakefront park in Portage, a beautiful reopening of waterfront property, once poisoned and dead, now alive in nature and use of people. I spent nearly an hour watching gulls spy the waters for food, occasionally diving quickly to catch some fish foolish enough to seek the warmer top waters. As I walked from my car, I heard one man call them "flying rats," a phrase I've heard since spending time on big water 20 years ago. And, indeed, the bird will eat anything. The moniker hardly diminishes the beauty, though, of the white and gray birds as they fly, dive and then rise again. Nature is too pure to let derision make it anything less.

It was, as Wallace and Gromit would have it, a fine day out.