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| (Amy) Winehouse. |
Large enough for a Queen-sized bed – and little more – the houseboat is home for the night.
At first glance, we see a cyclops.
The structure has been fitted with a large window, like a convex monocle, allowing us to spy over sun-dappled lily pads and flocks of birds, which flap from the shrugging tree like letters, scattered on a typewritten page.
We have a Tiki Hut bar, an outdoor shower that it’s likely too cold for, our own fire pit and a rowboat, which we use to write in cursive through the lilies.
Fall's bite nibbles in the air as jet-black cormorants crane their necks and a majestic blue heron glides by like a ballerina. Fish jump, quickly realizing they should slip away from prying beaks.
The late-day sun is as golden as the fall fields that fade into the shore. The first peach stains of evening melt across the sky.
As Lake Erie thunders on the wind, we paddle into the serenity we've been seeking from a world that has seen successive crises for months. Sometimes, the illness, politics, racism, economic collapse and isolation become too much.
So you seek even more isolation.
It's not far from home, but with the pandemic snarling through its seventh month, it's as far as the world beckons for the time being.
It's a barrel of laughs.
