Column 13 Published in the October 27 Warroad Pioneer
“It’s morning time, Mama,” my two-year-old says quietly, expectantly. The thick morning accent of half-awake and a sore throat picked up on our travels muffles her baby voice. I wrap her into my robe and we curl expertly together, watching the sun warm the dark lake and the frost-covered muskeg on our first morning back at The Angle. We’ve been away for a week, and it feels simultaneously as if a lifetime and no time at all has passed.
Leaving The Angle is a big part of loving The Angle. Just like anywhere, I suppose, time away from our day-to-day is vital to remembering why we choose to stay where we are.
It’s a long walk in a different kind of forest, breathing different air.
Despite the new experiences and faces, the glimpse into other walks of life, the tastes of beautiful food not available at The Angle, the shopping – oh to spend an hour walking the isles of a big box store staring at sundries I haven’t seen or imagined in over a year – despite the warmth of seeing far-away family and the chance to meet new friends, new possibilities, it’s always the coming home that has the most impact.
Home becomes something most precious to those of us fortunate to have one, and perhaps even moreso to those who don’t. In Northern Minnesota, we don’t have to look the issue of homelessness square in the face like city-dwellers do or avoid doing. In fact, many of us have callous and unkind get-a-job attitudes about it without considering the soul of the human enduring that journey.
But everything we all long for centers around Home. It is at the foundation of all attachments and it’s the base-level fear when you break down each limiting belief.
We left to peaking fall colors and came home to the grays and rain-turned-snow of the coming cold season. The bird bath and rain barrel are crusted over with ice each morning, and the world is taking on that familiar quiet that ushers in the restful sleep of winter.
Resorts are mostly shuttered and we’re back to minimal traffic, the steady movement of the deer and a quiet and resigned wait for the ice.
Halloween is our next happening here at The Angle, and mothering turns it into more wholesome, memorable fun than ever before. On Friday, October 30th, we’ll join the school kids for their afternoon party, fully costumed and ready for games and sugary treats. That evening, Jerry’s Restaurant and Bar will host the Wilderness Feast, which is a wild-game potluck, and its annual party, themed this year Hairy Scary Halloween at The Angle. I wonder how many yeti punk rockers will show up. Locals, take note: it’s not on Saturday the 31st because that would conflict with trick-or-treating, and hey, we can change things up like that if we want to. It’s The Angle.
Rural trick-or-treating is an exhausting adventure for everyone. We usually have an advanced count of how many kids will show up, and the goodies are grand because there are so few. Mr. Barrett usually has some taxidermied atrocity subtly hidden that scares the adults more than the kids. And the houses with the full-size candy bars are always remembered. The same cars criss-cross The Angle, hitting all of the regular stops, and by the end of the evening costumes are destroyed from or lost in the chaos of getting in and out of a vehicle so often.
There are about 70 households counting the islands, and we’ll knock on at best ten doors. It takes all night.
We’ll fall asleep to a sugar low and wake again to light across our beloved lake, the same waters that still hide the body of 28-year old Keith Ayers. May his family find what little peace they’re able to knowing none of us have forgotten. When we see the beauty and give thanks, we also pray he is taken Home before the ice comes, leaving The Angle one final time.
Kellie Knight’s “Angle Full of Grace” 