Pausing

Having finished my errands around town, I had a few extra minutes to kill before picking up Isabelle from preschool today, so I drove down to Ludington park in Escanaba and pulled into one of the parking spots overlooking the bay. Lake Michigan was doing its best impression of one of its sisters, Lake Superior, spitting forth large, angry slate-colored waves that rocked and pitched in no real discernible pattern, tossing white spray into the air. The rain continued to beat down upon my windshield obscuring the view and a low cloud bank and mist made it difficult to even see the smoke stacks of the paper mill across the water, let alone the other side of the bay. The wind tore at the trees and shrubs along the shore, ripping the colored leaves off soaked branches and plastering them to the pavement of the sidewalk.

Inside the cocoon of my car I listened to the wind and the crash of the waves, watching the force of nature around me, feeling the dark sky pressing down above me, as if it did not realize it was the middle of the afternoon. I found myself wondering how many others sat looking out on this lake at this moment scattered around the shoreline. It certainly was not a typical day to admire the scenery, for on days when the sun was shining one could drive down to this spot and be met with a dozen cars. Now, glancing on either side of me I noticed two other drivers parked in my vicinity, keeping watch. Were their others like us in Traverse City perhaps? St. Ignace? Or at countless other roadside turnouts?

A lone seagull stood defiantly on the sidewalk outside my car, facing into the wind towards the lake, head hunched down into his body like a football player in full pads. Like us, he seemed to be watching. Did he find it beautiful, this ever changing lake, as I do, even on a day like today? I don't know, but I think all of us (seagulls or humans) would benefit by just stopping for ten minutes every now and again. To take a pause in our action to watch the action of the lake.