Has anyone seen my furlog?

Sheer panic is one sleepless night away.

How can I tell?

Tonight, it's a tinge of panic, a smidgen of panic, a pinch of panic.

And that anxiety will mushroom like a, uh, um, well a mushroom, I guess, into full-blown panic Saturday morning because I do not know that I'm one damned iota better today than when furlough began one week ago this evening.

I have just two days left to determine or prove that I've used this gift of free time to improve the remains of my character, the detritus of my intellect, the thing of my thing.

These two days will have one common theme: that of my wonderful daughter, who likely will distill my fears into some simple, childlike wisdom that will light the bulb in my noggin. We try not to make big plans, instead moving through our time organically and if that means we cook an omelet, that's what we do. If we feel like nature, we go to the beach. And if we need a philosophical treat, then it's Spongebob Squarepants. (Seriously, the dude's very Zen. Except for the whole wisdom thing. Other than that, totally Zen, man.)

Just what the hell have I done all week? Other than some readin' and writin'? I didn't even try cipherin'.

Today, because the weather was a gift from Jehovah himself, I returned to the state park where I finally caught that damned elusive red-headed woodpecker on film. Then I trekked the dune that takes you to the Beach House Blowout, a formation of sand dunes that looks like a bullhorn, were you to look down at it from space -- or Google Earth. The place calms and soothes and challenges all at the same time. I'm attaching a video. (The audio is the wind, not me.) Blowouts form when the the eternal winds move south down Lake Michigan and breach the nearly 200-feet tall dunes that separate the lake from the land. The blowout can be caused by a lack of plants holding the sand down or just the whims of nature. What they create, though, are these great sand-based amphitheaters where one can sit softly and watch the show that is Lake Michigan.

I also reconnected with one of my dearest friends, the Countess Angela Murphy, who without dropping names can move through the philosophies of Pascal, Darwin and George Carlin in three sentences. I realized in my hermetic seal that I should never again forego such a person-- and for this I am truly thankful.

But what does that add to any facet of my life, to go to a place I've been so many times I could walk it in my sleep?

I hope, I hope that in the next two days I can find something to tell -- to both my dear Furlog readers and myself-- that I've become a better person through this gift of unpaid time off.

If not, I will need help from you. And I will seek it.

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.