Morning steps quietly through the night, lifting the veil of darkness to reveal her cerulean glory. What a difference a night makes. Yesterday, she was sunny and blue. This morning, she is sad. Grey. Cloudy.

Perhaps, I wonder, she didn’t sleep soundly. Perhaps, unlike me, she was restless beneath night’s blanket.

I slept soundly. The quiet here. the fresh air. The whisper of the leaves upon the trees. The far off call of a loon lure me into slumber. Lull me into ease.

We went for a boat ride yesterday. Four of us climbed into a fibreglass craft, our host manned the helm and we took off across the placid waters of the lake. The wind whipped against my cheeks, pushed the tears out of my eyes. I lifted my face up to the sun and let it dry my tears as I laughed in exhilaration! Alive in the moment I let my body sink into the joy of simply being on the water.

Earlier that morning I had leaped into the water and was one with it — for just a few moments. Did I mention how cold the water is?  It’s cold. Snug in a craft that carried me along its surface, I felt the separation. And that’s okay. I love being on or in the water but I must admit — wrapped in warm clothing, a blanket tucked around my bare feet, on it is warmer than in it at this time of year!

We hugged the shoreline, sped across wide open water, drifted quietly down a river into the next lake over, darted under a bridge where I ducked my head, just in case.

It was an exhilarating hour of exploration. Of watching the world whip by as we sped along the water’s surface leaving only our wake in our passing.

The lake is quiet at this time of year. Labour day weekend has come and passed. Cottagers have begun the process of settling their homes for winter’s inevitable onslaught. Doors and windows are boarded up. Boats are out of the water. Docks extracted and pulled ashore.

It is part of the seasonal passings of lake country. The setting in for winter’s storms and the ice that will cover the waters in months to come.

This town of 3,000 swells in summer’s heat. The shores of the lakes and rivers are lined with homes. Boaters, swimmers, skiers play in and around the water’s edge all through the summer months. And then, autumn colours begin to turn and the cottage-goers retreat to city houses, hunkering down for the cold, dark nights of winter.

And yet, dotted amongst the summer homes preparing for winter are those who live year-round at the water’s edge. it’s easy to tell who they are. Boats still bob at their docks, smoke drifts silently from their chimneys sending up signals to the seasons to warn them that they will not retreat, they will not pack up and scurry away. “This is my home,” they seem to say to winter’s breath curling up at the edges of the water. “I am not afraid of you.”

When I went into town yesterday to use an internet connection at the cafe, I chatted with the woman who runs the tiny bistro/candy store that also serves up the world-wide-web. (The connection at the house is abysmally slow and I can’t load photos from here.)

She’s lived here 15 years. Came east from the coast, she told me on a trip further west. But she met a man and stayed and cannot live. “My life is here,” she said. She’s never made it further west than Toronto. And she’s content.

I stopped at the cemetery too. No one spoke to me there. 🙂  But the sign at the edge of the graveyard was fascinating. It read, “Unsafe conditions may exist in cemetery.”

Unsafe for whom I wondered?

Visiting with our friends who are of Polish heritage, I believed this entire area was only settled by the Kashubian. The cemetery tells a different tale. Murray’s. O’Flynn’s. Connors. The headstones are a story of Irish settlements in the area. When I question our hosts about the Irish presence in the area they tell me of vicious rivalries turned deadly. Of altercations escalating from ethnic hatred to pickaxes and shovels being used as weapons of mass destruction.

“There were years of ethnic intolerance,” they said.

The cemetery was quiet when I stood upon its unsafe grounds and listened to the birdsong in the trees. I read the names and epitaphs and thought of men who fought in the name of their forefathers only to die in the struggle to hold their heritage intact on a piece of ground.

And I thought of war today. Of guns and bombs that hurl through the night. Silent, deadly often unseen killers of mass destruction. Is there any difference?

Where once men looked men in the eye before they killed them in the name of the past. Today, death comes more stealthily. It is carried in on unmanned drones and missiles. And still it comes.

And no matter how it arrives, war always kills the spirit of our humanity. No matter what piece of ground you stand upon killing one another does not make peace.

And I am reminded. It is time to let peace guide us away from war to safer ground upon which to connect with one another.