Duluth, MN

From Anna's we continued on Route 2 across northern Minnesota
to my cousin Dan's in Duluth.  There he lives in a cool old house
with Waldo, a happy yellow lab and miraculous retriever of tennis 
balls.

Duluth elbows it's way up from the shores of Lake Superior with 
the topographical audacity of San Francisco.  In need of an ocean 
fix, Megan and I had been looking forward to the Great Lakes.  
There was the biggest of them, surf and all, but "America's third 
coast" didn't smell like . . . anything.  Alas, our longing only 
deepened without salt in the air, absent wafts of yarrow and the 
briny decay of beached seaweed.

Dan's a gentle hearted, amazing man, his actions apace with his 
ideals.  There isn't a screen in the house.  (I still remember his
letters from childhood, the envelopes carefully turned inside out
and reused, each stamped "Kill your television!").  His only electric
appliances are a few light bulbs and a small CD player, all powered
by a solar panel in the back yard.  His is a sharp, critical mind, 
surrounded by books.  He's long been without a car and gets to work 
on foot, by bike or on skis.  

His commute follows a trail he's voluntarily maintained for over 30
years.  It's quite beautiful and is treasured by locals, running along 
both sides of a lively creek near his home. The city of Duluth
named it in honor of his work.  

Dan the baker at Positively 3rd Street Bakery, which he's 
cooperatively owned and operated since 1982.  We stocked 
ourselves for the culinary uncertainties to come with fabulous 
breads, granola, and cookies.

We were out exploring Duluth on foot the next morning when rain
began to fall.  We quickened our pace, scanning for shelter as it
intensified over the next minute. It swelled suddenly to a deafening 
pitch and we broke into a run, bolting blindly to the porch of the 
nearest house.  We kept near the steps, shy to be on a strange porch 
but trapped there by the onslaught.  It was then that Megan noticed 
the door yawning ajar.  The house looked abandoned.  Dust and a 
few tipped over chairs, some wadded cloth.  Now that we were 
looking, we saw the front windows were boarded up.

Megan, very much out of character, stepped inside, gleeful of the
discovery.  A little spooked but alive from the rain and delighted
at her boldness I followed. Debris, some beer cans.  Hello?

Nobody.  We picked our way around into a larger room and saw
the staircase.  It looked as if it were being restored.  In fact it
wasn't a work in progress at all.  It was beautiful, heartbreakingly
beautiful, immaculate in almost frightening contrast to the dust
and broken glass around it.  The wood was of a fascinating, wholly
unfamiliar grain, hatching and spiraling like drops of ink in tea. 
As we moved between them, each bannister's graceful, irregular 
curves resolved into human profiles, exquisitely worked faces ripe 
with joy and sorrow, anger and bemusement.

The stairs themselves were more plainly shaped, but of the same 

mesmeric wood, its grain almost hallucinatory.  They descended 
a single swift flight to a small landing and a door, the most, 
well . . . the door . . . How do we begin?  The only way to–– The 
important thing is that we're going to stay here.  Live here, in this 
house.  Near it.  Ushers?  WE'RE FINE.  We won't be in 
communication . . . that goes without . . . but we want you all to 
know how much you've–– What we mean to say is we're . . . we 
can't.  Goodbye is what we are meaning to be singing.