I don’t mean to bitch, but it’s the Big Lake. She froze to the bone this winter and she’s damn slow to warm up.

Living cheek by jowl with Lake Superior as I do, I constantly feel her cold feet up against my back. Everyday is goose bumps. My blue skies are gray as her fog-breath obscures the sun. My photographs’ palette is pastel.

She has remade June into a cooler, but, and for this I am just a bit grateful, she changed June into a florist’s cooler. Here, on the threshold of July the lilacs are still opening quite timidly. Ornamental crabs blossomed, but in these refrigerator temperatures forgot what happens next, so they remain in flower. Wildflowers linger in bloom hesitant to continue their cycle not knowing if this is June or April!

Even with this prolonging of spring blossoms I’m grumbling. It’s cold. Everyday it’s cold. I love the purple of lilacs but not as the color of my skin; I want to look summer-tan!