Path to Page Workshop Part 2

Recently, I went on a day long hiking and writing workshop in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Northern Michigan. The class was lead by Ann-Marie Ooman and sponsored by Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear, the park liaison group that coordinates volunteer efforts to maintain the historic buildings on the park grounds.
The hike went through the Port Oneida Historical District, which contains unoccupied homes, barns, beautiful forests and breathtaking views of Lake Michigan.
The following is an excerpt from one of my writings that day, in its first draft form.

Miller Barn
Birds, leaves rustling in the breeze, sounds of distant traffic. Stillness of the barn. It rests easily and comfortably on its property. The house is gone, first from fire, then from neglect, but the barn remains - still and strong. It is on a firm foundation of stones - the huge corner posts resting flatly on boulders. This is an easy place to be, the site is at rest.



Earlier I wondered what the people who lived here thought of life on the edge of Lake Michigan, with its dramatic views and fierce weather. Were they afraid, awestruck when they looked out on the larger than life landscape? I often feel that way, overwhelmed by the otherworldly sights here. But 125 years ago, when their lives depended on the elements, how much more amazing it would've been to see the Lake, on it's beautiful days as well as it's stormy ones. With all of the modern control I have over my world, looking out onto the dunes and Lake still makes me feel small.
Yes, they were terrified - unable to control the elements, like the cold and snow of winter and storms, they had to always be prepared - to accept whatever came on a daily basis. Their coping mechanisms were not developed like ours are - a/c, furnace, radar to track storms, snow plows, and good cars. Every change had the potential to be a huge upset; every storm could destroy, like a roof blown off a barn.
In the Olsen house nearby, there is an interpretive display about life on an early farm, which talks about the daily drudgery of the "wood chores". If they didn't do wood chores daily in the winter, there would be no cooked food, no warm house, no warm water. They are wrong about the wood chores. Wood chores, no mater how laborious, create the end result of incredible warmth. It is a miracle in the dead of winter to enjoy the warmth of a fire. Having lived a winter season in an old drafty farm house can create the appreciation of heat on a bitterly cold night. It is the kind of heat that warms to the bones. It is an enormous blessing, universally enjoyed and appreciated by every living thing in the house.

From Anne-Marie Oomen's writing, "When its work is done, a barn knows how to be alone...it knows how to close its eye; it does not long for callers."
Yes, old barns really know how to be empty, when they are solidly cared for and sturdily made. Old homes do not know how to be empty - a sadness resonates in them and reverberates outward onto their sites, and can be felt in a passing car - even at 55 mph. Old homes, without the flow of story, are unable to stand, and start to become invaded by weather and animals. What Would Nature Do? It would erase all traces of human past.
Why? Why are we so much a part of the natural world, yet so far from it? Why are we at war with it?
This site, at the Miller Barn, is a site at rest. Nature and humans have struck a balance here, allowing for serenity to pervade the very rocks of the foundation.