Boundary Waters

Our Thursday routine is to run errands while three children are at piano lessons. One stop on the Thursday route is the lab where Mom has blood work done. Yesterday, in a decaffeinated stupor, I grabbed a National Geographic and started reading. The words "Boundary Waters" jumped off of the page, waking me from my dazed state. I came very close to naming this blog Boundary Waters. My nickname among friends and family is Boundary Queen, and it is a title I treasure. I have come to know and appreciate my limitations, and to see that life is enriched when we live within boundaries. My days are only twenty-four hours long, and that is enough. The days of my life were numbered before time began, and I can rest in the fact that my time on earth will be long enough. Somehow, accepting all of that has been freeing. When I say, "No," people know that I mean it. Even more importantly, when I say, "Yes," they know that I mean it. I do not have any desire to have it all, be it all or do it all.

We have dear family and friends that live in Minnesota, but have never been to visit. Now, the Boundary Waters have become intriguing to me. One of these days, we will take our Road Trip Family on a long one, heading east, to where Boundary Queen and her loyal subjects can marvel at the beauty on the edge of our country.

The National Geographic article and Jim Brandenburg's book appeal to me for many reasons. The Boundary Waters are one. But, I also love photography. The pictures featured in National Geographic are beautiful, and the book has more. Plus, the study of nature, through the rhythm of the seasons, is worth reading about.

The article: Boundary Waters, National Geographic, June 2003

"So I decided to photograph every day of it. From June's summer solstice, when the light stretches from 4:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., to September's autumnal equinox—93 days I sought it out, taking in all that a day delivered. I traveled from Uncle Judd's Creek, which tumbles into a waterfall just outside my window, up into the lakes of Canada's Quetico. The gift of a misty July morning was a great blue heron crowning a black spruce. Yes, there were days wretched with black flies and mosquitoes, but those mosquitoes pollinate our glorious orchids, and I'm sure the flies have a higher calling too."

"Sig Olson understood that 'without stillness there can be no knowing.' Once you've experienced the singing wilderness—here or wherever the natural world reigns, you can carry it with you to the noisiest city. As Sig wrote in my copy of one of his books: 'May you be somewhere where the singing can be heard.'"

The book: Looking for the Summer, by Jim Brandenburg