Untethered in the Morning

The sun was just coming up when I leashed up the dogs to walk them down our long driveway in Grand Marais. The sunrise was soft above the far trees – yellow and orange, strands of pink.

And I thought, “Morning has broken like the first morning,” and sang in my head the rest of the first stanza of Cat Stevens’ song, “Blackbird has spoken like the first bird, Praise for the singing, praise for the morning, Praise for them springing fresh from the world.”

Meanwhile, the dogs were pulling on me, hard, especially the new dog who is powerful and intense until he eats, and so I worried that I’d lose my grip and they’d both go trotting off because even if they are just trotting, they can outrun and outlast a person. They are sled dogs, unawed by sunrises.

We went to our house on Lake Superior for just one night to close it for the winter. The house is for sale and has been cleaned within an inch of its life so spending even a single night there after not being there all summer carried risks of messing things up. Dog hair or accidents, wet towels, coffee grounds on the counter.

We tiptoed in and out, slept in the guest room downstairs, hurried through all our closing chores, and left. It’s not the final leaving. The house isn’t sold and probably won’t be this year, it being near winter in the U.P. But it stopped being our nest. I don’t know why.

It is a beloved place, but I don’t want to be there anymore. It’s like a beloved person who you just don’t want to spend any more time with. Something snapped and that it did scares me about other things that could snap. How do you just not love what you’ve always loved?

This morning, in the half dark, I wondered why I wasn’t sadder, homesick for my beloved place, why I wanted to finish the chores, load up the dogs, and get back to the city as soon as possible. Maybe it’s the message of “Morning has broken,” something else is next, there is new light somewhere, more.

As we pulled out, the sky clouded over, and it started to rain very lightly. We talked about taking a quick camping trip to the Keweenaw or the Smokies. On the drive home, I asked my husband to google the route for John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. It was a 10,000-mile circle tour of the U.S., if you’re curious.

I want to go there, everywhere. Untethered.