who needs sleep?

a beautiful fog settles in along the creek

do you ever get the feeling that sleep is a waste of time? it's not a feeling that comes over me very often, but it does occasionally. and tonight is the second night this week. it happened as well on sunday night. it's a very awake, very alive feeling and it feels like to try to sleep would spoil it, interrupt the flow. i can't make the feeling come and i can't predict when it will come, but i recognize it very clearly.

sunday night, i don't really know where it came from, but tonight, i think it's because it's completely magical outdoors (this photo in no way does justice to the magicalness).after days of rainy, grey weather, it was sunny and beautiful all afternoon and this evening was perfect  - still, golden and wonderful. we grilled in the graden and we'll be able to pick the first bowl of strawberries tomorrow.  a day of welcome warmth after all that rain has made tiny carrots and beets finally show up. i swear the potatoes grew 10cm today.

it's a very switched-on feeling, like i can go on working and thinking and processing until it gets light again. and not only like i could, but that i should. it's a very intense feeling. and tho' it sounds perhaps a bit manic, it's different than that, because i don't feel like hurrying or buzzing around. it's like my mind is very open - to ideas, to possibilities, to the universe. and i have to grab onto it and not miss it. but i can do that in a quiet way, without flurry.

i was trying to explain this yesterday and i'll admit it sounds stranger "out loud" here on the page than it does in my head or than it feels. have you ever had this feeling? do you know what i mean? please say you know what i mean.

when you put ideas into the world, magic happens

when you start something, it begins with a few who are interested.

then it grows, as they invite their friends.

and who knows what it will become?

i am grateful for this evening. for being interviewed (if only for 3 minutes) on the radio. for being comfortable enough to spend my entire evening in danish. for those who were more charmed by my accent than offended. for those who came - some who felt a sense of duty to me (thank you!!), but who ended up inspired (thank you!!!). to the nodding and smiles and tears i saw in some eyes. to the beginning of something. something potentially special. and especially for the ideas that i hadn't thought of that already surfaced...words to go with the photos (of COURSE!) and photos already taken over the years. fantastic.

mostly i'm grateful for meeting neighbors and new friends. and the sense of community.

i love putting something out there into the world and seeing what happens. because it's always magical.

edit: i should have noted that this post is actually about the project i described in the previous one.

haunted lake

a few days before christmas, sabin and i were walking around down on the lake. she didn't know it yet at that point, but we were all getting skates for christmas, so i wanted to check out the quality of the ice. out in the middle we came across some fresh tracks in the snow - they resembled a small horse hoof with a funny sort of A-shaped shoe on it (imagine that the top of the A was rounded). there was even a bit of unfamiliar-looking poo in the snow - it wasn't horse poo and it wasn't deer poo, but something sort of in between.  several centimeters of snow covered the entire surface of the lake and these tracks were very visible. what was strange was that they were only there in the middle and didn't seem to have led from one shore to the other, tho' in that snow, they should have.

sabin and i got to talking about ghosts and we kind of spooked ourselves a little bit in that delicious way that you can spook yourself when it's starting to get dark and you're a bit far from the house. we hurried towards in the house, laughing and trying not to really be scared.

another day, while skating, i pointed to a dark figure at the other end of the lake and asked husband if he could see someone down there. he said it did rather look like a person. eventually, we skated down to the other end and convinced ourselves it had just been a shadow we'd seen amongst the frozen, snow-covered reeds by the edge of the lake.

yet another day, it was again getting dark and sabin and i headed back to the house, our skates slung over our shoulders. sabin asked me if i had coughed, but i hadn't. she said she'd distinctly heard a cough behind her, like an animal had coughed. but we looked around and there was nothing there.

in every case, it has been the most deliciously spooky feeling...the kind that makes you feel your senses are heightened and you are just more alert, tho' you are also aware you could run just that little bit faster than usual. if you had to.

today, sabin and three of her friends went down to the lake to skate. it's a bit grey and dark out today and snow is falling occasionally. about an hour after they headed out, the four girls came bursting in the back door, red-cheeked and out of breath. they'd been down on the lake and one of them distinctly heard a growl behind her, like an angry dog. but when they turned, there was nothing there.

another of the girls saw several dark figures running across the lake in the distance. they were indistinct, but in a hurry. and the girls were sure it wasn't just some deer, which are quite plentiful in the area. they got scared and headed back for the house. at the back of the shelter belt, there's an old refrigerator container and in the waning wintery afternoon light the girls were convinced they saw silvery eyes glowing at them from near the container. and by that time, they were pretty scared.

i invited them into the warm kitchen to get out of their snowpants and scarves and hats and i made them a big batch of popcorn and hot cocoa that seemed to dispel the fear of ghosts. they were soon laughing and talking and playing top model and all fears were forgotten.

but a haunted lake is quite a thrilling prospect, isn't it?