Sarah Gibbard Cook
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Up North, Revisited

10/8/2018

2 Comments

 
We’re just back from a four-day escape to Wisconsin’s Door County peninsula, our vacation home away from home. We walked our favorite walks and viewed our favorite views. The comfort of familiarity contrasts with the stimulation of last year’s visit to Greece, where everything was new to us.

​Human senses tune into change, novelty, the unexpected. In Greece, grand edifices like the Temple of Poseidon grabbed my attention. Perception operates at a different level in a setting one knows well. In northern Door County, where every turn of the road is familiar, it’s the doe and fawn by the roadside who catch my eye. The particular blend of red, green, and yellow in this patch of woods, this particular week. The cormorant preening its feathers on a ledge fifteen feet from the observer. Sunbeams shooting straight up into the clouds from a purple sunset over the bay. The joy of novelty in a home away from home lies in the ever-changing details.
2 Comments
Rebecca link
10/14/2018 10:50:36 pm

CS Lewis talks about seasonal joys; that we humans like tradition and change. Both give us new perspectives. I like your descriptions of the wildlife in Door County. Birds or sunsets are the same and always different.

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Sarah link
10/16/2018 07:36:53 am

Seasonal joys - what a lovely idea. Yes, we like both tradition and change, and within the tradition some details always differ, and within the change there's always some continuity, if only in the self and memories we bring to the experience.

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    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 

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