I have to turn the heat up while reading this book. It takes place on Lake Superior, and the icy winds jump from the page and go straight into my bones. This is the power of words extraordinarily placed, for sure, but it’s also the release into those pages — the allowing of yourself to go there — an agreement between author and reader that says I will take you on a trip, if you trust me. And what a ride, if you do!

Maybe it’s easier for me because I’ve been making that same deal with my heart for most of my life. As it authors my journey, I choose to follow. It has never promised a clear path, quite the contrary. But it has guaranteed an experience. Paths that I never would have imagined. It waves me in. (It’s hard to refuse the heart’s “c’mon!” — so I follow.) But it never leaves me stranded. Within the adventures of the unknown, the uncertain, the even frightening at times, it throws out lines of “brave” and “hope” and always the ol’ show stopper — “love.”

This new book is entitled, “I Cheerfully Refuse,” by Leif Enger. As I snuggle under a Grandma Elsie quilt, I take the rain to the face and follow where it leads.

There is a voice in all of us, I suppose, that says “you know you can just quit.” I have heard it a million times. And it can be intoxicating, but it’s not my author, so I refuse, cheerfully, and make my way with courage, hope and love. And the key word here is make. Perhaps we were taught that we would magically “find” our way, when the truth is, it has to be made. Step by step. Word by word. Day by day. Trip by trip. Typing it now, I have to smile, because it tells you right in the name, this journey — this “trip” — that there will be stumbles, just as advertised. This is not for fear, but comfort.

The sun is coming up, I can’t hear the sound of the negative voice over the yell of my heart’s c’mon! I begin to make my way.