Ice Up

We spent Thanksgiving weekend at the lake. A few cold nights had finally frozen its surface, but the days again became sunny and warm, and water pooled over most of the ice during the day. The nights were cold enough to even the score--the first evening dropped quickly from around fifty into the low twenties, and I sat by the fireplace long after Genie and the boys were asleep.

During one trip out to the deck to inspect the stars and take a deep breath, I heard a sound like distant machinery across the lake. I knew the sound well, because I lived at the cabin during the summer of 2000, when the last five miles of highway from Pequaywan to Brimson were paved while I studied for the bar exam. The engineers had sited a gravel pit very close to White Lake. The road crew ran only during the day, but the gravel sorter ran twenty-four/seven for a couple of weeks, and I grew to be almost unperturbed by the ceaseless summer serenade.

This time it sounded more distant, beyond the farthest shore, but a steady and regular mechanical sound. All had been silent when we first arrived, and even the first time I'd been back outside after dark, and those are empty woods back there. Could it be that I was hearing the crystalline din of a lake freezing? I almost convinced myself of that certainty, then dismissed it. Maybe someone was running a cement mixer on the beach...

Two nights later, we had a fire outdoors to burn some brush, and I was down near the lake all evening. The temperature once more fell quickly at dusk, and soon the distant jangling began again. It started from where the lake had first been shadowed at sunset, migrated slowly across the far shore to a point where it sounded like crickets and peepers, and culminated in a faint tinkling that didn't come from any particular direction. The next day the weather turned overcast, windy, and cold, and the lake emitted the occasional whoop and moan, running the gamut from loon to humpback whale--one long dispeptic bloop must have lasted three seconds. The surface thickened quickly, and I kicked myself for failing to bring mine and Cole's skates. I have heard the ice often in the depths of winter under snow, loud rifle shot to deep alien warbles, and it never ceases to amaze me. But with the luck of a mild late November respite from winter, I was treated to an unmatched natural concert.

© 2006 Michael Nordskog

Eating Crow: An Introduction

When I wrote a novel three years ago, I had no idea it would become a critical and popular sensation, and thus I have not been disappointed. I've let it steep for awhile after a couple of rejections: Graywolf was put off by the lack of dialogue in the sample chapter; Coffee House actually summoned the entire manuscript before remitting a form-letter rejection. I saw this as progress, because at the time I'd just gained my first freelance byline.

I have recently decided to revisit the story, work out a few kinks, and flesh out the characters via periodic postings to a separate blog. The chassis of this novel is the notion that we are all beings with a consciousness that, properly tended, exceeds our hat size. That spiritual fulfillment is as diverse as are the means by which life reproduces, as varied as the many shapes of seeds. That some get a second chance to sum up their mistakes and soar on the thermals for awhile, and that some get it right the first time. Eating Crow certainly will require your suspension of disbelief, but I would not call it magical realism--I would use the term supernaturalism. If I have succeeded, I have adapted the story of the ugly duckling to a familar context and entertained the reader.