"I hear lake water lapping"

I'm heading up to the lake by myself tomorrow, in this case my parents' place on Lake Beltrami, north of Bemidji. They're back now from their winter in Mission, Texas; I haven't seen them for over seven months. I think they have a nice life: summers on the lakefront with the canoe and the pontoon, the deer and the loons. Winters in the sun with friends and weekly happy hours, bridge tournaments and art classes. Our kids, their only grandkids, each spend a week at the lake with a friend. Mom and Dad teach them to bake bread or to sew, catch walleyes, waterski. Mom's always yelling out to them: "Wear sunscreen! Take off those wet suits! Be careful!" Dad just keeps feeding them more food.

When my kids were little they would fall asleep on the long drive up from the Cities but wake just as we hit the curvy Gryce Styne Road, entrance to the west shore of Beltrami Lake. "Are we at the bumpy road? We're on the bumpy road, we're on the bumpy road!" they'd say in their whisky nighttime voices, and they'd kick their little legs against the car seat and clap their hands.

My mom wrote this morning: "Just a line to tell you we are excited about your visit and getting food, movies, and the bedroom ready. It's cold and wet but we have heat, unlike the first couple of days and I almost froze. I'm anxious to see you and catch up on some news about the family and talk about things I just can't express on the phone or machines. Please drive carefully and take as many breaks as you need. We'll be here
waiting for you."

That warms my heart and makes me smile. This charming story from Bill Holm, writing in the new book Cabins of Minnesota, makes me smile, too. Here it is. Have a good weekend!

"What about professional performing musicians who must, of course, practice every day, but like the rest of us need a periodic cabin retreat and renewal? Jussi Bjorling, one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, was endowed with a silvery tenor of great lyrical beauty. He was also the pride of Sweden. His career began in the twenties as a boy singing with the Bjorling family quartet, touring every hamlet in the country, singing folk tunes and hymns on Swedish state radio. 'Tonerna' or 'Varmeland' could reduce otherwise phlegmatic Swedes to blubbering. As a grown man, his Puccini and Verdi sold out opera houses all over Europe and America.

"Like most Swedish families, the Bjorlings owned a summer stuga, a retreat to nature for the brief, intense arctic summer of continual light. But singers vocalize daily to keep their instrument tuned and supple. To learn a new role for the opera season requires hundreds of hours of practice. The Bjorling family owned a small island in the Stockholm archipeligo, with a comfortable and commodious house for guests, children, long summer dinners with herring, boiled potatoes, pickled beets, gravlax, cream cakes, aquavit, and probably croquet on the lawn. Imagine Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander.

"But for Jussi, there was work to do, so he commandeered a small cabin next to the lakeshore, moved in a piano, and created his studio. There he disappeared daily to vocalize and memorize. But an operatic tenor of his size and penetration is a bit hard to muffle. Vesti le Giubba is hardly silent. On the other hand, it is very beautiful. Bjorling’s voice was of such quality that even a simple scale or arpeggio could bring pleasure. Remember also that Jussi rehearsed on the lakeshore and sound carries with astonishing clarity and distance over water. Neighbors from miles around that galaxy of small islands must have heard the bell tones of the great man at work. Being Swedes and simultaneously loving his voice, they wanted to listen but not to cause a fuss. They drifted past in their canoes or small boats, extinguishing the motors or rowing as silently as they could past the music. There they floated as slowly as possible as Il mio tesoro intanto or Una furtiva lagrima or Ingemisco undulated out over the glassy surface of the lake in the long white light. Bjorling’s son Anders remembers an endless parade of boats moving silently past the studio for this watery glorious concert. What did they do when the great man, needing a cup of coffee or a pee, stopped singing and opened the door. Did they applaud? Wipe tears from their faces? Or being good Swedish neighbors did they nod politely, or cast rods into the water as if just passing by hunting for a breakfast pickerel? That scene and the thought of that music make me wish I had been there."