The sun is shining on Lake Huron and it looks like a sheet of scattered diamonds. I had my first swim of the year in a Great Lake. I swim, I do somersaults in the water, I leap up from the bottom and surface and do a full rotation before re-entering the water. The degree of difficulty on that is high. My starting point, my potential score for the day is set to be a personal best.

And it feels good.

The pain has gone away, I just noticed.

I packed a picnic and found myself a nice little spot, dapples of sun and shade and the sound of aspens trembling.

I read a book. I haven’t read a book in years and I love to read. I am reading a book and then I will read another one. It makes me happy so, well, isn’t it kind of a no-brainer that I will read more often?

I can’t remember who said it to me, but I was young, and I remember someone saying if I had another brain it would be lonely.

Brain, meet Brain (not to be confused with Brian).

Who is lonely now?

It’s quite a steep hike to get up and down to the beach and I push myself. I can feel my heart pounding and I am sweating like a pig. I am not too sure if pigs actually sweat, but I do know that sometimes they are served in little blankets and you can’t make a silk purse out of their ears.

It’s funny the things we humans do and eat and stick in places.  I guess the question is do you want to be the first to try? And I guess the answer is do you want to be the first to succeed or the first to fail. Either way, it makes you a winner.

I pushed myself today.

I wanted to and I needed to.

And I didn’t push back, I swung my arms exuberantly as I scaled the cliff and like a sideways helicopter I reached my elevation.

For dinner I had fresh corn that I stopped to buy at a farm on the way here.  A few slices of fresh tomatoes and some new potatoes. And some ham. That’s another thing you can do with pigs is turn them into ham but I’d rather not think about that.

My father used to say “as happy as a pig in shit” so I will think of happy pigs taking mud baths at the spa. I’ve got my own shit too, and I can be happy.

Seedless watermelons are the best invention of all time, so I cut into that and think maybe I should buy another one and, what’s the fancy expression for it? Yes, infuse it with vodka.

The sun set like a big shiny two dollar coin that was painted red and was slowly being inserted into a slot in the lake. It disappeared and there were birds and animals and trees everywhere as if all that was around me was a vending machine and I had hit the motherload.

Tonight, it will be Scrabble or cribbage and walking after midnight just like the song by Patsy Cline.

The moon is just as amazing as the sun and man can it shine bright. Tonight it has carved out a thick band of white, like a trail from me at the shore off into the horizon. I think the expression Treasure Trail might be some kind of innuendo, but tonight it is the path that I am taking.

From here, to there and back again.

The wind picks up and the water and the trees and me, yes me, all become a bit more alive than we appeared to be a few moments ago, a few weeks ago.

What’s that I hear?

I see it now.

An owl in the tree.