Tammie slid into my car behind the steering wheel and methodically adjusted the height of the seat and moved it closer to the steering wheel. After changing the angle of the seat and tipping the backrest forward, she started on the mirrors. Each one had to be angled just so, to allow her to see everything as a safe driver. Once her requirements were met, she turned to me and cheerfully asked, “Ready to go?”

I love driving into town to do short errands, but dislike long distance driving to unfamiliar places. So, when Tammie offered to do the driving on our vacation to the tip of Door County, I happily accepted. We both looked forward to visiting The Clearing in Ellison Bay once again.

We planned to spend an enjoyable week being creative among other creative people. Since we had successfully convinced my sister Agnes to join us, we were more than usual excited and happy to be attending another session at this school of arts. This summer Tammie and Agnes took the watercolor classes while I registered as an independent student to work on a long-anticipated writing project.

The Clearing has three to four classes each week, starting in early May through October. The classes range across all the disciplines of arts and crafts, for example, photography, writing, and blacksmithing. The small campus has rustic cabins equipped with modern amenities. Three, five-star, restaurant-quality meals are served each day. The fire rings and trails along wooded cliffs overlooking Green Bay are awe inspiring. Some veteran visitors fight for the privilege to spend a night in founder Jens Jensen’s primitive cliff-side house.

Located on 128 acres, The Clearing was purchased in the early 1900’s by Jens Jensen, a famous landscape architect. When he began his search for a place to start his landscape architecture school, he insisted that it face west, overlook water, and be located on forested high ground. Since ‘The Clearing’ is far from Chicago where he had his offices, Jensen called his slice of paradise, ‘The Clearing’, saying that it was a place where students could escape the pressures of urban living to clear their minds.

Each morning after breakfast, Tammie and my sister Agnes walked the winding trail through the woods to the schoolhouse where they learned different water-color painting techniques. I returned to our cabin where I sat down with my laptop to write. After our noon meal, I would sometimes go to the schoolhouse to admire their paintings in progress. Then I went back to our cabin to work on the play for another three hours. It wasn’t a struggle to follow this discipline, but occasionally I felt lonesome. This was my first year being independent, so I missed the friendships that form when taking a class.

Walks through the woodland trails during the free hours before the evening meal ensured heightened appetites. Meals eaten together in the main lodge helped all the students form friendships whether sharing a class or not. Evenings were spent either working on a project, sitting around talking or enjoying a bonfire.

The play I worked on is titled, “Fumes”. It features elderly parents, their daughter, and her husband. The older couple have dementia, so the younger couple move in with them to give them the care they need. The daughter’s husband is an amateur inventor. While inventing a high efficiency furnace in the basement, the son-in-law discovers what appears to be 150 jugs of moonshine. When his furnace fails to run on conventional fuels, he feeds the furnace hooch. His invention works, but it produces terrible fumes while only using one tablespoon of gut-rot to heat the house for one winter month.

Paradoxically, the fumes make the young couple experience dementia while clearing the minds of the older couple. Dad figures out what happened, so he and Mom begin caring for their daughter and her husband. How can Dad fix it so all four of them are clear-minded? Does he even want to? During my stay at The Clearing, I managed to write more than four thousand words for the play’s draft.

Time passes so quickly! Before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to our new friends. Tammie drove Agnes and I home before going back to Saint Paul the next day.

Alone again, I got into my car to run errands in Marshfield. Nothing felt right behind the steering wheel. The seat was too close to the steering wheel, the backrest was too far forward. Slowly, I adjusted the mirrors and all the other settings my daughter had changed. Finally, having everything the way I like it, I thought to myself, “Now I’m well adjusted.”

This is a night picture of the Main Lodge. Students and teachers come together here for each meal. To learn more, click here… https://theclearing.org/wp/visit/