I left the lighthouse and was driving back to my hotel when I paused at a state park. It’s actually one of my favorites on Lake Superior. It offers waterfalls, coves, cliffs…all fantastically dramatic and covered with birch, pines and maples.
 
I needed a break from the research trail and followed a path into the trees. My camera and I emerged on a broad rocky shelf at the water’s edge. The environment was tremendously photogenic and I burned frame after frame on it. Ahead of me was the Lake, too wide to see the opposite shore. Behind was the forest I had just emerged from. Beneath was a floor of rock, dented and cracked.
 
I finished photographing one spot and followed a path to the second, at a shelf’s edge. To consider it merely a shelf was a bit misleading. It was in fact a proper cliff. I was fascinated by the large waves pummeling the rocks and knew they’d make great photos. I was wary of the rocks and purposely kept at least an arm’s length back from the edge. Deep cracks caught my attention and calved boulders raised my senses. I certainly didn’t want to be part of a rockslide into the water.
 
As I walked along the cliff side I felt my hiking boots lose their grip on the rocks and I began to slide. With no fences to stop me, trees to reach for or people to shout to I was at the mercy of motion. The edge grew disturbingly close and beyond that was a twenty-foot plunge into the frigid, pulverizing surf. I grabbed my camera tightly, bracing to hit the water with it.
 
Just as I was on the brink of falling, something stopped me. My heart roared and I panted knowing that at any second I could still fall over. Looking down, I saw that my toes were less than a hand’s width from open air. Still no fence, trees or people…I stood there afraid to move. Any adjustment could throw the balance off enough to jump-start the slide. I didn’t have to lean over to see past the edge, I just looked straight down.
 
Waves drilled directly below, working to gouge out a cave in the cliff face. Off to the right were more hot spots for grinding waves. Along the left, massive boulders had tumbled into the Lake. I began to build a plan for getting out, should my footing slip again. The water was slightly above freezing and force of the waves too powerful to operate in for long. If I went over I’d have to agree to hypothermia and heavy pounding. It’s said that a medium-sized wave feels like a sledgehammer. Even the piled boulders at the bottom of the cliff didn’t look promising. They were slick with a film of water and just out of the cliff’s reach. If I were able to climb up on one I might not be able to get onto stable ground.
 
My mind operated in two distinct camps. One was an avalanche of memories flying at the speed of light. It was consumed by overly frenetic chaos. The other was absolutely still with crystal vision and understanding. I’d never been so utterly split before…half frenzied and half unruffled. Somewhere an inner voice wanted to know how I’d protect the camera.
 
I stood there debating whether to move or not. Naturally I wanted out immediately and to leave the park. Shifting my balance to move my feet was still difficult to accept. I hadn’t slipped any closer, not that there was much closer to move, but I still felt that unless I was miles away, I could still go over. My controlled self mastered my thoughts long enough to lend a convincing point. I couldn’t stay there all day. At some point I’d have to move.
 
Preparing for an immediate frozen dunking, I inched from the edge and didn’t stop until I was quite far from it. There I remained for a little while longer, hands squeezing the camera so hard I thought it would cave in. I didn’t realize that my breath was held in suspension. It just didn’t occur to me to breathe. As my nerves very slightly relaxed I found my breath again. The sudden presence of it seemed out of place.
 
I didn’t bolt for the car; rather I went to a cove to one side of the cliff and continued to shoot. It was strategic, really. It was partly due to needing to calm down before driving and partly to get all of my thoughts marching in the same direction again. Under better circumstances that cove would’ve been fine to photograph at. As it was, each time a wave boomed against a boulder I jumped.
 
I was back at work the next day. The place was at the height of commotion, typical pre-shipping goings-on. Last second orders were rushed from the printers to proofing. Packages were quickly assembled and tossed to the hectic shippers. I was coming in past all of this as lead photographic printer on the night shift. My day started when theirs ended. Usually I’d meet an atmosphere saturated with running and shouting that spiked my adrenaline. This day was quite unlike that. If felt as if I floated through the departments, as if I did go over edge and my ghost was back at work. 
 
At the entrance to my printing room a fellow printer paused to say hi. She saw that I wasn’t entirely connected. Upon asking, I told her simply that I nearly died the day before and I wasn’t completely used to being alive yet. I’m sure there were better ways to phrase it, but my brain was little more than a series of misfires. I wondered if I had gone over, would anyone have noticed? How would my parents have heard the news? Would my friends have cared?
 
It was that event that my eyes began to open to the possibility of this reality not being as we’ve come to see it. That perhaps true valuables can’t fit into a safe, they’d just drift out. That work and rent and picking up milk on the way home isn’t what it’s all about.
 
It wasn’t until just now, as I pen this honest account that another point formed in my thoughts. Possibly, just possibly when I felt something stop me on the clifftop it was for a reason. Possibly too, it may not have been a guardian angel, loved one or manifesting my own hero. It could very well have been an officer with his hands in his pockets and determined stare.