An Imperfect Day

We experienced power outages overnight and in the early hours of this morning as wicked storms surged across the Midwest. I realized that I can live without lights and no telly, but no morning coffee? Come on! Life doesn’t move out of first gear without a cup of java to jolt my brain. The outage would last for hours as crews scrambled to address extensive damage caused by the storm, so I climbed in my car and drove to a local coffee shop. They were also hit by the outage. No coffee. I shook my head to clear it of cobwebs and drove to the lakefront.
 
Lake Michigan is fronted by dense woodlands which were still soggy from the storm. Leaves dripping and mud oozing, I stuck to a stone-covered path that descends sharply to the beach. I crossed the rain-packed sand and discovered that the shoreline was deserted. I had the entire stretch of sand as far as the eye could see to myself. Waves were massive; the surf driven by a storm still howling somewhere over the lake. Lake Michigan is a vast body of water covering 22,000 square miles. Nearly 1,000 feet deep, it holds over 1,500 shipwrecks. So not a good day to be out at sea, but the perfect morning to stand on its wind-tossed shore.
 
     Clouds surged. Wind flattened tall grasses. Waves lashed shoreline rocks.
     She screamed in frustration. Screamed again. Wind snatched her raucous noise
     and tossed it into the frenzied surf. Remy felt a keen affinity with the heaving surf:
     Troubled. Turbulent.
                                                      - Excerpt from The Sacred Stones
 
The stiff lake breeze stung my eyes, spiked my hair, and cleared my muddled mind. I plodded back to my car, drove home, and wrote that passage; a fresh scene in The Sacred Stones. Caffeine wasn’t even required! I just had to step into an imperfect day and let Mother Nature rattle my bones to find inspiration that would have otherwise eluded me.