Three weeks. Gone.

For you working in regular jobs or chasing kids, three weeks with a small dog and your laptop in a house on The Ledge might sound questionable. You’d rather spend three weeks of free time on Cape Cod or touring Europe or driving the California Coast. If you’re a writer trying to squeeze time with your creative work around other work, you understand the value of three weeks in a quiet house with a rocky front yard.

The house on the Ledge is built on the Niagara Escarpment. During huge storms these weeks, I wondered if the thunder that deeply rocked my office shook the entire stony structure from Watertown, New York through Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin and the tip of Illinois. Under cities and countryside, harbors, orchards and vineyards, the Ledge that formed the basins of four Great Lakes remains fairly unchanged through centuries except for human interference. There’s a story to be written form those facts.

Saffron and orange leaves now stand out in bands of green. Temperatures have been in the forties more mornings. Packing to leave, the sundress and sandals return to the suitcase never worn. A red sweater, jeans, t-shirts, socks and sneakers simplified morning selection of what to wear. Local grown raspberries, sweet corn and tomatoes are gone from farm stands where apples are piled high.

One book off to the publisher, one manuscript truly finished and revised, future projects thought through, peace of mind restored. Packing to leave the shores of my beloved Lake Michigan for the hard working Mississippi River’s bluffs. Wish I could be in two places at once.