Life in Motion

As I sit at my desk in my cabin, I am observing life in motion. The Boundary Waters’ mist of Autumn crept across the lake at dawn, becoming thicker and thicker till I could no longer see the island, fifty yards away. Now it is beginning to lift and I see the faint outline of red pines and rocks on the shore. The daylight is breaking through. Later, it will inevitably lift completely and the island will be fully visible—it is life in motion.

Our lives are no different than the changes in nature—what was once invisible becomes visible and what was solid and real, later vanishes with the passing of time. This can be as large as life and death or as mundane as plans for a weekend changing.

This weekend I was supposed to be doing a retreat for Native American youth at the Grand Portage Reservation with my friend Adam. He called on Monday with “bad news” saying that it would have to be postponed due to his mom’s unexpected heart surgery. He sounded scared and overwhelmed. I offered my time to talk to him about it, which he accepted appreciatively—again, life in motion.

I felt a moment of disappointment as I was looking forward to the retreat and spending time with my friends, but this soon transformed into a feeling of relief and gladness at a freed-up weekend to close down the cabin with my wife. It is the peak of the fall color and we had a glorious trip up the north shore of Lake Superior and the Gunflint Trail to our cabin—life in motion.

When we arrived at the cabin, we saw what we had been warned of---a three-foot rise in the lake in the past month. After a seven-year drought, the rain raising the water level was a welcome. However when we arrived at the cabin we soon saw the destruction that rising water can create—our docks were broken and disconnected from the shoreline, our boats were flooded, and our two kayaks had floated away to some unknown landing place on a 22,000-acre lake—life in motion.

I now see the island in front of me as the fog is beginning to lift.

My wife and I had to land the boat in a very precarious situation but we managed to dock the boat and within a short time had it unloaded and were repairing the dock and reconnecting it to the shore. We then pulled the partially sunken boats on shore and secured them after bailing out the water.

I continued to investigate the surroundings, the wilderness’ silence was interrupted by my wife’s call, “The kayaks have floated away!” At first I thought, “Oh no, not my favorite kayak. I can’t believe they’re gone. I thought I had pulled them up high enough on the shore.” A short period of guilt and embarrassment ensued. However, my feelings quickly passed to acceptance and we directed our energies to taking care of business—life in motion.

The next day we began our search for the wayward kayaks. Our lake is very large and filled with hundreds of islands, inlets, bays and infinite hiding places where they could be. We drove with binoculars in hand searching for our lost friends. Suddenly, one of them appeared several feet above the shore and into the woods, obviously thrown up by the force of wind and waves. It was slightly scratched but overall in remarkably good condition. We were delighted—life in motion.

The island is now clearly in view and the fog is mostly gone. The second kayak is still missing. Will we find it? We don’t know—life in motion.

And so it is with all our lives—life in motion: the unexpected happens, people get sick and die, have surgery, money is made and lost, relationships begin and end, the fog comes and the fog disappears revealing the sun that never really left. Our state of mind, the peace we feel or loose site of, is always there when we accept what is in front of us and see that we have a choice, whether to fight change, to be overcome by disappointment or accept what is and move forward to the next step—life in motion.

Live and love fearlessly, Joe Bailey